Over the past several months, Wisconsin lawmakers have waged a war on the state’s Medicaid program by requesting federal permission to add time-limits, work rules, and drug tests. But new data obtained by ThinkProgress suggests these drug tests are especially costly and virtually ineffective at enabling care. And if the Trump administration green-lights Wisconsin’s request, taxpayers will have to pay for it.
Requiring people who depend on government benefits to pee in a ...
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Ted Cruz admits he just ignores Trump’s scandals
After calling candidate Donald Trump a “pathological liar” and “narcissist” during the 2016 presidential campaign, one might have thought that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) would have emerged as a critic of the president’s mounting ethical issues. He has not — and in an unusually candid comment on Wednesday, he made it clear why.
Asked about the chaotic Trump presidency on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Cruz said that he simply ignores the chaos and s...
Trans author Sarah McBride reflects on life lessons and the progress of equality
In her 27 years, activist and author Sarah McBride has already experienced many significant life events. Her new memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality documents the whirlwind that has been her past six years.
In 2012, she came out as transgender as she finished her term as student body president at American University. She went on to become the first openly trans intern at the White House, the face of the fight for transgender equa...
West Virginia lawmakers reach a deal granting teachers a 5 percent pay raise
After nine school days of strikes, West Virginia lawmakers reached a deal Tuesday to provide a 5 percent pay increase to teachers, with both chambers of the state legislature voting unanimously to pass the agreement.
We have reached a deal. I stood rock solid on the 5% Teacher pay raise and delivered. Not only this, but my staff and I made additional cuts which will give all State employees 5% as well. All the focus should have always been on fairness and gettin...
Kansas Secretary of State seeks to deliver a devastating blow to voting rights
When Tad Stricker moved to Kansas from Illinois in 2013, he procrastinated getting a new driver’s license. He was busy with work and settling into his new city, and wasn’t eager to spend a day at the Department of Motor Vehicles. But when the registration deadline for the upcoming gubernatorial election approached, he decided it was time.
When he first arrived at the local DMV, he was told he didn’t have the proper documentation to get his license, so he hurried home to collect seve...
Trump’s Medicaid crackdown comes for Arkansas
On Monday, Arkansas became the third state to make unprecedented changes to its nearly 53-year old Medicaid program, the government-run insurance program for the poor and disabled. The state will now add work requirements and other restrictions as part of a nationwide conservative agenda to cut Medicaid rolls. In Arkansas, enrollment is expected to shrink by thousands.
The Trump administration allowed Arkansas to add an 80-hours-per-month work rule to its Medicaid program. The state...
The White House opioid summit was very white
The White House convened a summit on the opioid epidemic Thursday, where drug addiction experts and victims asked Trump administration officials about what was being done to curb a crisis that kills an average of 115 people nationwide every day. People harmed in some capacity by the epidemic spoke directly with cabinet secretaries, but there was a noticeably absent voice: those of people of color.
The lack of racial diversity is an increasingly obvious trend in the Trump administrat...
In Washington, Kentucky governor brags about an opioid policy that worries health experts at home
Speaking before 13 other governors on Saturday, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) talked up a state policy that expands access to drug addiction treatment. But the progress he touted will likely be blunted by forthcoming Medicaid changes in the state, which could make it harder for people with substance use disorder to keep health insurance and, thus, get addiction treatment.
“Couple of things we’ve done in Kentucky,” said Bevin at the biannual governors conference in W...
Obamacare repeal is back, and it is stupider than ever
The sun rises. The sun sets. Young people fall in love. Taxes are paid. People die. And Republicans make newer, dumber attempts to repeal Obamacare.
It’s an endless, unbreakable cycle of meritless lawsuits, half-baked legislation, and disingenuous political rhetoric. It would be hilarious if hundreds of thousands of lives weren’t at stake.
The latest effort to kill Obamacare is a lawsuit brought by 20 Republican governors and attorneys general alleging that, since...
A new bipartisan Senate bill tackling the opioid crisis still falls short of what’s actually needed
A bipartisan group of eight senators unveiled legislation Tuesday that addresses an opioid epidemic that killed nearly 64,000 people in 2016 alone and shortened life expectancy by about three months.
CARA 2.0 — advertised as a sequel to the last major bill to address the opioid epidemic, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of late 2016 — would impose new rules to prescribing opioids and dedicate $1 billion to addiction treatment and recovery programs. The bill a...