Last week HHS released final numbers for health care enrollment through the ACA. Overall enrollment this year was 11.8 million, a 3.3 percent year-over-year decrease. A decrease that many see as undercutting claims that the exchanges are collapsing. Perhaps most significantly, the report shows that premiums did increase significantly but the offset purchasers received through
The biggest event last week was not the drama around a final FY 2018 budget bill but came on Saturday when several hundred thousand came to Washington to listen to a series of young people-children speak of the horrors of gun violence in the United States. Except for some limited celebrity entertainment in support of
A combination of higher budget caps tied to the defense budget and the increasing spread of opioid addiction combined into a final appropriation deal that resulted in some truly historic increases in children’s spending. Leading the way was the single biggest increase in child care funding history at $2.3 billion with an additional $600 million
The just-signed appropriations had a number of improvements for a child welfare advocacy community that does not normally experience. Congress was not “budget neutral”, e.g. we will increase child welfare funding if we cut child welfare funding in other areas. The increase in CAPTA is in fact historic rising from an ever-eroding base of $25
The $2.3 billion in new child care funding represents an historic increase not experienced since its inception in 1990 under the George H.W. Bush Administration. Other increases included the 1996 TANF law that included an influx of $1 billion over six years that also leveraged state matching funds. The next big increase came at the
Shaquita Ogletree The final federal budget for FY 2018 resulted in an overall Juvenile Justice funding level that is slightly above 2017. There is a notable $22 million increase for youth impacted by the opioid crisis and drug addiction added to Title V and Youth Mentoring programs. State Formula grants increased by $5 million to
The week started with the President in New Hampshire announcing his opioid abuse reduction plan and ended with Congress acting in a much bolder funding proposal. The President’s plan was thin on specifics but included a broad outline that included broad strokes of: • REDUCE DEMAND AND OVER-PRESCRIPTION: President Trump’s Opioid Initiative will educate Americans
In the end a fix for DACA was never really considered. Despite the President’s comments on Friday it appears that a DACA fix was never a serious point of negotiation. As one of the three key factions in any budget negotiation, the President could have drawn a line in the sand and demanded a fix.
There were several other funding increases and efforts included in the final bill. They did agree to strip out a Congressman Jay Dickey (R-AR) from 1996 which had a chilling effect on CDC research on gun violence. Although the original language did not specifically ban CDC research in this area, at the time in 1996
Shaquita Ogletree On Monday, March 20, the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth and Cybersecurity Caucus co-hosted a briefing to discuss youth in foster care as victims of identity theft and what some companies are proposing to do to solve this problem. Speakers included Eva Casey Velasquez, President/CEO of Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), Serita Cox,
