Plans for States in the State of the Union

By JC Hendrickson | Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 9:12 am

While President Barack Obama’s third State of the Union address Tuesday focused primarily on familiar themes of economic recovery, the president tipped his hat to some new policies that could have a major impact on states, specifically education reform, infrastructure and hydraulic fracturing.


Municipal Bonds: Trends in 2011

By Sujit CanagaRetna | Friday, January 20, 2012 at 11:01 am

The Southern Legislative Conference has released its latest Regional Resource - Municipal Bonds: Trends in 2011. The Resource examines how the municipal bond market fared in 2011, if fears expressed by certain experts regarding widespread bond defaults were realized, if investors shed their holdings in municipal bonds and fled to other asset categories and a number of related topics.


States Turn to Managed Care to Control Medicaid Costs

By Jennifer Ginn | Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 3:22 pm

In 2010, Texas found itself in a tight spot with its Medicaid spending. In just 10 years, spending for Health and Human Services had grown from 20 percent to 28 percent of general revenue spending. To make up for that increase, spending on education dropped from 62 percent to 56 percent of general revenue funds.


Medicaid Spending

By Debra Miller | Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 11:52 am

Per capita health care spending and Medicaid spending per enrollee vary widely by state. According to 2009 data, the highest Medicaid spending state, Alaska, spent more than twice the lowest spending state, California. State spending for Medicaid continues to grow, consuming one third of the Missouri state budget, but just 7 percent of the Wyoming state budget in 2010.  Regional and state data are provided in this brief on per capita health spending, Medicaid spending, and Medicaid enrollment. 


Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund Loans

By Jennifer Burnett | Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 11:51 am

Unemployment rates remain high and many people have been without work for extremely long periods of time, exhausting state unemployment trust funds— the funds from which states pay benefits. More than half of the states are borrowing from the federal government to cover costs, which may have an impact on future fiscal stability.
 


CSG Webinar: Medicaid Managed Care, January 12, 2012

By Debra Miller | Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 1:40 pm

Medicaid is probably the biggest elephant in any room where policymakers are discussing state budgets, state policy or health care. Indeed, Medicaid made the CSG Top 5 Issues for 2012 in both health and fiscal and economic policy published earlier this month by CSG.

The CSG webinar “Medicaid Managed Care: Asking the Right Questions,” broadcast on January 12, 2012, addressed one way policymakers are looking to bend the Medicaid cost curve. States are using managed care to cover about two-thirds of all Medicaid members.