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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

“No Docs without Documents” Law Hurting Colorado’s Health?

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Monday, September 24, 2007   

Denver, CO – Thousands of low-income Coloradans are struggling to get medical care because of a federal Medicaid law requiring proof of citizenship. Colorado family advocates say the identification rule is unnecessary, since no one in this state is receiving care who shouldn't be.

Elisabeth Arenales with the Colorado Center on Law and Policy says the new ID rules for Medicaid enrollment have done nothing positive since they took effect last year.

"As a state, we have spent about $1.5 million to implement these new requirements and we have found zero people in the program who should not be there as a result of this provision."

However, Arenales adds, the requirements have become barriers to enrollment for thousands of legally eligible people in Colorado and nationwide.

"It's very difficult, particularly for lower-income families, to get the identification records they need for medical care. They might have to track down an official birth certificate from their state-of-origin, and they have to have the money to pay for that."

The new rule was intended to purge illegal immigrants from the rolls, but Arenales says it's been a solution to a nonexistent problem.

"Coverage is being delayed or denied to children throughout the country, and these children are clearly citizens. They just can't produce these narrowly-prescribed forms of documentation."

Opponents of the rule hope the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) reauthorization bill now in Congress will include an option for states to verify citizenship electronically during Medicaid enrollment. Many say that is a much speedier way to get people necessary coverage to which they are entitled. Congress may consider the bill this week.



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