CULLMAN —
The unknown ground and anxiety associated with the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision to uphold the majority of President Obama’s national health care initiative is just beginning to take hold.
State officials across the country are looking closely at the role Medicaid could play in bringing more Americans into the ranks of the insured. But coupled with that part of the health care plan is the reality that many states are stretched to or beyond their limits in funding Medicaid.
Among those financially strained states is Alabama. Gov. Robert Bentley already has in place a task force to examine Medicaid funding issues that pre-dated the Supreme Court ruling. While Alabama’s leaders have not made a decision to increase Medicaid or opt out of that portion of the health care initiative, the consensus is that the state cannot afford additional costs.
The high court’s ruling says the federal court cannot take away states’ existing federal Medicaid dollars if they refuse to widen the program. While the plan calls for the federal government to pay the actual health care costs for new clients in Medicaid for the first three years, two points are making states hesitant to join. The administrative cost of adding thousands of people to the Medicaid roll would mean tens of millions of dollars of new expenses for states. After three years, states would also begin to fund a percentage of the medical costs.
The perplexing point for states such as Alabama is that thousands of residents could benefit from the insurance coverage, but afford the cost seems insurmountable at the moment. With the plan scheduled to take effect in 2014, the opportunity exists for states and the federal government to come together, minus the political lines, to find a solution to the Medicaid dilemma.
Editorials
EDITORIAL: States wrangle with Medicaid holdup in health plan
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Taking the lead in education
The once-heralded ‘No Child Left Behind” education initiative from the federal level has just about run out of gas.
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Moving into the future
Hundreds of local high school seniors are accepting their diplomas and preparing to turn the page in the next chapter of their lives.
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Editorial: Seizure of AP phone records insult to independent press
This amounts to spying on an American news organization -- common practice in dictatorships but scary conduct in a democratic system that prizes the public value of an independent watchdog press.
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EDITORIAL: The IRS' Turn to Answer Questions
Washington is now sinking its teeth into a real scandal: the Internal Revenue Service using ideological criteria to choose the targets of its attention.
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Editorial: The house of death
The grisly details emerging from the murder trial of a Philadelphia abortion doctor place a glaring spotlight on a national disgrace.
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Editorial: Murder, insanity and guns
James Holmes, the accused movie theater shooter in Colorado, would like for the public to believe he killed a dozen people because he was insane.
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Lasting partnerships
Economic development officials have long noted the importance of expansions by existing industries and businesses in a community to lead growth.
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COMMENTARY: Why does young adult fiction keep giving its heroines makeovers?
Over at This Ain't Living, s.e. smith (who, full disclosure, has guest-blogged for me at ThinkProgress) has an excellent post about one of the most pernicious trends in young adult fiction.
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A spirit for moving forward
This weekend marked the two-year anniversary of a deadly day of tornadoes that streaked across Alabama, claiming lives and property and changing the landscape of many communities.
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Faith and bombs
The investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing is pointing to the all-too-familiar theme of religious faith playing a major role in violence.
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