What We're Reading: Top State Stories 6/4
TX: Poor oversight in Texas lets companies skimp on care for sick kids, disabled adults
Years of inept state regulation have allowed corporations to profit in Medicaid managed care, and Texas health officials have hidden the full extent of the problems from the public, the Dallas Morning News found. Essential medical care was delayed, denied or not delivered in hundreds of cases.
MI: Lawmakers in Michigan expected to vote on repealing prevailing wage law
Republicans in the Michigan Legislature are expected to approve a petition that will repeal the state’s prevailing wage law. The law, which requires paying union-scale wages for public construction projects, has long been a target of GOP lawmakers, who say taxpayer dollars will be saved with a repeal.
RI: Missed appeal could cost Rhode Island millions in nursing home court case
Rhode Island’s failure to file a “timely″ court appeal has opened up a budget sinkhole that could require the retroactive payment of millions of Medicaid dollars to dozens of nursing homes. The financial consequences are so potentially large they could seriously affect legislators’ plans to roll out a new state budget.
IA: Judge temporarily blocks Iowa's 'fetal heartbeat' law while lawsuit is resolved
Iowa's fetal heartbeat law, which would give the state the most restrictive abortion regulations in the country, has temporarily been put on hold. For now, women can continue to make appointments and receive abortions prior to their pregnancy's 20th week.
NY: New York spent $15 million to build a film hub. It just sold for $1.
A $15 million state-built film studio outside Syracuse, which promised to produce hundreds of jobs and bring Hollywood’s glitter to Central New York, hit an inglorious milestone with its sale for $1 to a new corporation set up by Onondaga County.
WI: Wisconsin agrees to end pepper spray, limit solitary confinement at youth prisons
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections has reached a legal settlement that calls for the agency to end the use of pepper spray and put strict limits on solitary confinement, handcuffs and strip searches at the state's two youth prisons.
OK: Oklahoma referendum on medical marijuana won’t list qualifying ailments
If Oklahoma voters approve state-sanctioned medical marijuana later this month, it would become the first state not to list specific ailments for which the drug could be prescribed. Thirty states have enacted medical marijuana laws, but all listed qualifying conditions.
HI: In Hawaii, the growth in tourism is affecting residents’ quality of life
Growing concern that Hawaii could see 10 million visitor arrivals this year moved the state Legislature to cut the state tourism authority’s marketing budget and apply accommodations taxes, previously assessed only against room charges, to resort fees and other hotel receipts.
OH: Ohioans could vote in November on harsher dialysis clinic regulations
A showdown between dialysis-clinic operators in Ohio and patients relying on those services is underway, with a constitutional amendment that would crack down on the clinics possibly headed for the November ballot.
SC: South Carolina rural counties deal with bridge problems
The vast majority of South Carolina's more problematic bridges are not on the interstate highway system but in the state's more rural counties, according to a Post and Courier analysis of five years of national bridge inspection data.
MA: Massachusetts community hospitals struggle to compete with richer rivals; seek legislative solution
The rates insurers pay community hospitals for services are far below the average for Massachusetts hospitals. Community hospital leaders want state lawmakers to approve a “minimum wage” for hospitals, bringing those on the low end of the pay scale within 90 percent of the average reimbursement for medical services.
