The Trump administration is considering a plan that would allow states to require Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — formerly known as food stamps — recipients to undergo drug testing in order to receive benefits, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
According the AP, the proposal would apply mostly to recipients who are able-bodied without dependents and applying to some specialized jobs. It’s a tactic many conservatives have advocated for in ...
ThinkProgress
Paul Ryan is retiring from Congress
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will announce to his friends and colleagues Wednesday morning that he will not run for re-election in 2018, according to multiple media reports.
Ryan will join over 30 other Republicans in the House of Representatives who have already announced their retirements earlier this year, an indication that the GOP believes the party may not have what it takes to hold onto the House in 2018. Democrats only needs to pick up 24 seats to take back the chamber.
A sweeping, multi-state anti-poverty movement kicks off in the age of Trump
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized thousands of Americans in an anti-poverty effort popularly known as the Poor People’s Campaign, a group of progressives want to revive the effort on the heels of a sweeping new report surveying poverty in the United States.
Gathered in the nation’s capital on Tuesday, organizers and activists announced a 40-day multi-state action protesting economi...
Trump administration issues new rule chipping away at Obamacare
The Trump administration issued a ton of regulatory changes Monday that chip away at the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Moving forward, states will have more flexibility to set their own standards and people will be given new exemptions to avoid the health care law’s individual mandate penalty.
The 523-page regulation is one that comes out every year, and is intended to outline what ACA plans will look like for consumers next year.
Monday’s rule gives consumers two ne...
Rick Scott wants to take his bad ideas to Washington
Florida’s term-limited Republican governor, Rick Scott, launched his campaign for the U.S. Senate on Monday — painting himself as a Washington outsider despite his track record of policy ideas that fall right in line with the Trump administration’s priorities.
“We have to all acknowledge that Washington’s a disaster. There’s a lot of tired thinking up there. Here’s what we shouldn’t be doing — we shouldn’t be sending the same types of people to Washington,” S...
400,000 Virginia residents edge closer to Medicaid expansion after key Republican splits with party
Virginia is inching closer to providing health care to 400,000 low-income residents after a key state Republican signaled this week that he was willing to split with his party and support Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.
Virginia is among 18 states that has not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), leaving roughly 400,000 in a “coverage gap” — meaning, they’re uninsured because they make too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little for subsidized...
400,000 Virginia residents edge closer to Medicaid expansion after key Republican splits with party
Virginia is inching closer to providing health care to 400,000 low-income residents after a key state Republican signaled this week that he was willing to split with his party and support Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.
Virginia is among 18 states that has not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), leaving roughly 400,000 in a “coverage gap” — meaning, they’re uninsured because they make too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little for subsidized...
‘We simply don’t have the resources’: Surgeon general’s call to carry naloxone raises red flag
It’s been 13 years since a United States Surgeon General issued a public health advisory, but on Thursday Jerome Adams did so to urge every person to carry the overdose-reversal medication naloxone.
“Neither this [advisory] nor naloxone is a panacea,” said Surgeon General Adams at the National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit. Instead, the advisory serves as a way to draw attention to a public health crisis, where more Americans have died of drug overdoses in 2016...
In just 24 hours, Scott Pruitt’s scandals blew up into an ethics crisis
From pipeline deals and GOP fundraisers to private jets and pay raises, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt’s series of scandals has escalated in the past 24 hours.
Pruitt is not a man untouched by scandal. Since coming to the EPA in February of 2017, he has made headlines for expensive first-class travel, secretive private phone booths, and a close relationship with the industries he is charged to regulate.
And on Monday — the same da...
The 2020 Census citizenship question is going to mess with Texas
Last week, the Commerce Department announced that a citizenship question would be added to the upcoming decennial Census for the first time in 70 years. The implications are stark for the entire country, but results could be dire for one state in particular: Texas.
The Census is a constitutionally mandated project, one that meets a number of crucial national needs. But years of funding shortages, stalled efforts to upgrade its technology, and general leadership issues within the Cen...