Entitlements

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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more news

CMS Denies New SCHIP Rule Exemption for New York

Sep 11, 2007 by Craig Jennings

A couple weeks ago, the Bush Administration, via the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) promulgated new rules affecting eligibility requirements to which states must adhere in the administration of their SCHIP programs. On Friday, New York became the first state to be denied an exemption. WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — The Bush administration on Friday rejected a request from New York State to expand its children's health insurance program to cover 70,000 more uninsured youngsters, including some from middle-income families.

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David Brooks On Health Care

Sep 7, 2007 by Matt Lewis

David Brooks in the NYT today promotes Stuart Butler's plan for reforming the health insurance system. Skepticism is advised, on political grounds. The principle political obstacle holding back an efficient and fair benefit system is public fragmentation. Some of us get most benefits from the government- some of us get them from the private sector (with help from the government that often goes unrecognized). And most people don't want to lose what they have, even if it might be for a better deal later on.

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College Access Bill To Be Enacted

Sep 6, 2007 by Matt Lewis

CongressDaily (subscription required) reports that the President will sign the Higher Education Access Act of 2007- a revenue-neutral bill that will give more help to students to pay for college.

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Take Action on the SCHIP Regulatory Changes

Aug 24, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Interested in protesting the CMS decision to limit SCHIP eligibility? Get your Senator to sign this letter, addressed to President Bush, denouncing these changes. The letter is being circulated by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR).

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Links

Aug 22, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Lots of good stuff came out today.

A Congressional Research Service (CRS, aka the super-authoritative researchers who members of Congress ask to do reports for them, but typically the reports aren't available to the public) comparison of the House and Senate SCHIP bills
The House Budget Committee's breakdown of how some of Bush's proposed budget cuts would impact each state
A knowledgeable article in the Washington Post about the

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Calling The President's Bluff

Aug 22, 2007 by Matt Lewis

A popular topic of discussion among the budget folk here at OMB Watch is the mystery of President Bush's veto threats, which he's made against just about every remotely progressive piece of legislation being considered by Congress. His party just lost an election, and President Nixon was better liked. Where does he get off trying to stymie Congress?

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Bush: Insured Children Are an Abomination

Aug 21, 2007 by Craig Jennings

What is with this guy? The Bush administration, engaged in a battle with Congress over whether a popular children's health insurance program should be expanded, has announced new policies that will make it harder for states to insure all but the lowest-income children.

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Administration Issues Eligilibility-Limiting Standards For SCHIP

Aug 21, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The NYT's Robert Pear reports today that the agency that administers the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has issued new guidelines that could limit eligibility. The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children's Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.

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Study Finds Millions Uninsured But Eligible for SCHIP

Aug 16, 2007 by Matt Lewis

In the online journal Health Affairs, there's a study of the number of children who are eligible for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) but aren't being covered. The authors- two economists at a federal health care research agency- found that 62 percent of uninsured children are currently eligible for SCHIP. That's 5.5 million kids, the vast majority of whom live in families whose incomes are below 200 percent of the poverty line and are disproportionately headed by a single parent. And for the fiscal policy folks, there's this interesting twist on the cost of SCHIP:

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NPP: Half of Those Eligible Receive Food Stamps

Aug 14, 2007 by Craig Jennings

A report by the National Priorities Project finds that of all people that are income-eligible to receive food stamps, only half actually receive them.

Half of all low-income people did not receive Food Stamp Program benefits.
Counties with lower poverty rates and higher median household incomes had lower percentages of low-income people that were Food Stamp recipients.
A significant number of counties, 13.2 percent, had below-average percentages of Food Stamps, yet had above-average poverty rates.

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