The paychecks that public employees get today will be quite a bit smaller than the ones they’ve gotten in the past. That’s because this is the first paycheck that takes into account a provision in the budget repair bill that requires public employees to pay more for their fringe benefits.Beginning teachers, janitors, workers in school,...
Census Bureau data on population trends indicates that by midcentury, people of color will be in the majority. Interestingly, a new opinion survey by Colorlines.com, finds that most people are ambivalent about this demographic shift. However, the research by the Applied Research Center (Colorline’s publisher) did find that among those...
The Department of Children and Families just released an operations memo dated 8/11/11 on the subject "Authorizations to Licensed Family Providers to be Attendance Based Only". "Attendance Based" means payment is based solely on hours attended, unlike private child care, Head Start, and public and choice schools, where everything is...
Many of us have frustratingly tried to decide which insurance plan to choose – and it’s like comparing apples to bananas to oranges, all in a foreign language. Thankfully, a preliminary federal rule announced on August 17 by the Department of Health and Human Services – implementing part of the health care reform law – will ensure that...
Back by Popular Demand Shortly after BadgerCare Plus began in 2008, I wrote a paper providing a detailed description of the income eligibility criteria, what people are eligible for, and how to calculate the premiums for families of different sizes and incomes. We recently got a couple of requests for an updated version of that report,...
Raging debates about reducing the federal deficit, as well as state spending, have reiterated a common point – health care costs are too high. Medicare and Medicaid make up about 23 percent of federal spending, and their costs are growing faster than the overall economy. Because of this, the new "super committee" will likely be looking...
Three new sets of proposed federal regulations relating to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were issued today by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Treasury Department. I haven’t reviewed them carefully, but I was pleased to read that Tricia Brooks at the Center for Children and Families (CCF) at Georgetown...
Seems Likely He’ll Implement a Heritage Foundation Supported ExchangeThis morning, the Washington Post’s article, “Will Wisconsin’s Scott Walker Implement Health-Care Reform?”, noted that of the seven early innovator state grantees, Wisconsin is the only state with a GOP Governor holding onto the money. Oklahoma returned its grant in...
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was signed into law on July 27th, 2006 by President George W. Bush with the intention of keeping tabs on sexual offenders. The Adam Walsh Act organizes offenders into 3 tiers. Tier 3, the most serious tier, mandates that offenders update their whereabouts every 3 months, with lifetime...
The National Juvenile Justice Network has just released a policy platform on Safe and Effective School Disciplinary Policies and Practices. Sparked by concerns about school safety, in the 1990’s and into the last decade, schools implemented a variety of “get tough” policies and practices that led to a steady rise in the number of...
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