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"MaineCare, the state's Medicaid program, has an annual budget within the DHHS of roughly $2.4 billion a year, Mayhew told the Rotarians. She added that at the start of his administration, Governor Paul LePage requested more than $200 million to stabilize the foundation of the program. In Fiscal Year 2014, she said, there was zero-percent growth in MaineCare spending as the DHHS seeks to identify deficiencies and provide services to those who need it most namely, seniors and individuals with disabilities."

"Transportation tied in with one of the other main topics discussed at the meeting, the expansion of Medicaid in the state. Medicaid funds can be used as match money for new vehicle and operational costs, Seurer said. Perhaps not surprisingly, Democrats and Republicans debated the pros and cons of Medicaid expansion. Earlier this year, the Legislature voted along party lines not to expand Medicaid benefits to more low-income residents."

"It turns out that the Republican-led General Assembly did give a substantial tax break to people other than the rich. The problem is that the relief went to people in other states. A McClatchy Newspapers analysis shows that the legislature's refusal to expand Medicaid means that North Carolina taxpayers could spend more than $10 billion by 2022 to provide medical care for low-income residents of other states. For its largess, North Carolina will get nothing."

"From 2013 to 2015, the new report says, federal spending on Medicaid will increase 27 percent to $323 billion, from $254 billion. In those years, it said, Medicaid spending by state and local governments will rise 12 percent to $218 billion, from $195 billion. The federal government will initially pay all the costs resulting from the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in states that choose to cover certain childless adults with low incomes. States will have to pay some of the cost for new beneficiaries who could have qualified for Medicaid under old eligibility rules."

"With the long-awaited deal to expand Medicaid finally struck last week between Pennsylvania and the Obama administration, 27 states and the District of Columbia have adopted a key coverage plank of the Affordable Care Act. And the momentum continues to grow in Republican-led states as Tennessee and several others look to expand coverage to low-income residents in 2015. Indiana has an expansion plan pending with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services."

"North Carolina taxpayers could spend more than $10 billion by 2022 to provide medical care for low-income residents of other states while getting nothing in return, a McClatchy Newspapers analysis shows. The Affordable Care Act tried to expand Medicaid to millions of low-income, uninsured adults. But many Republican-led states, including both Carolinas, opted out of the plan championed by President Barack Obama. If the 23 states still rejecting Medicaid expansion stick with that decision, they'll contribute $152 billion over 10 years to states that take the federal money, the analysis shows. North Carolina would be one of the top five contributors."

"The poverty rate in Steuben County is 16.2 percent; over 5,600 children (25.2 percent) in Steuben County live in poverty. Forty-eight percent of public school children in Steuben County are eligible for free or reduced lunch. A Poverty Simulation is a realistic portrayal of living in a low-income household for one month. Participants face the challenges that millions of Americans face as they attempt to keep their home safe, the utilities on, their medications current, their kids in school and fed. The simulation helps participants understand that poverty is about a lack of resources such as support systems, positive relationships, and role models, having the mental abilities and acquired skills to deal effectively with everyday life."

"As attorney general and now as governor, Gov. Tom Corbett has continually fought against Obamacare. That's why, when states were given the choice to expand Medicaid, an entitlement program, he said no. Expansion would have put 1 in 4 Pennsylvanians on public welfare, which is simply not sustainable for our taxpayers. Obamacare has significantly increased government bureaucracy and served only to drive up costs for families and small businesses. There is a better way to achieve true health care reform for Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvanians deserve more than a Washington, D.C., one-size-fits-all approach. Healthy Pennsylvania is an innovative, Pennsylvania-specific plan to reform Medicaid, protect taxpayers and increase access to quality, affordable health care on the private, commercial market."

"Every school building in the poor-performing districts is full of children who come to school hungry, with as many as 90 percent of them in some cases qualifying for the federal free-and-reduced-cost lunch program. In the high-performing school districts, only a handful of school buildings have even a third of children living in that level of poverty. Over the decades in St. Louis, we deliberately concentrated our poverty in specific geographic clusters and allowed school districts in those areas to bear the burden of dealing with the massive challenge of educating children dealing with the most difficult of life's circumstances. In some cases - not all - we have devised a system that requires them to get by on less."

"President Obama on Monday renewed his call to raise the federal minimum wage and to protect the right to equal pay for women as the midterm elections come into sight. In spite of opposition from Republicans, Mr. Obama said, addressing a crowd of about 6,000 people gathered in Milwaukee at a festival hosted by the local A.F.L.-C.I.O., his goal is to make sure all Americans can meet simple goals, like being able to pay their bills and send their children to school."

"Democratic gubernatorial candidate Donald Berwick has laid out some ambitious goals, among them ending chronic homelessness and eliminating childhood poverty. But his most sweeping proposal arguably the most sweeping proposal of the political season is moving Massachusetts to a single-payer or "Medicare for all" health care system. Eight years after the state became the first in the country to establish near-universal coverage, Berwick is reaching for an even bigger prize sought by liberals: shifting from privately financed care to a system funded by the government."

"In Pottstown, the obstacles Taylor faces in keeping her household together are hardly unique. Social-service agencies estimate as many as 30 percent of students in the Montgomery County town have to cope with what they call "housing insecurity." It is marked by frequent moves during the school year, doubling up on couches, living in motels, or occasional slides into homelessness. The new school year has brought a new social-services campaign to better identify families such as Taylor's and find creative ways to bring them stability, such as helping parents find work or deal with landlord issues and overdue bills."