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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.

Report: Medicaid Cuts Risky for NV's Poor and Chronically Ill

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Wednesday, September 28, 2011   

LAS VEGAS - Of the Nevadans who live with chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes and cancer, almost 97,000 are poor enough that they depend on Medicaid for health care. A new report says potential cuts to the federal program could cost some of them their lives, and end up increasing medical costs in the long run.

Most of the talk in Congress is about shifting more Medicaid costs onto states to reduce the federal deficit. Dr. James Snyder, a Las Vegas internist and member of the American Diabetes Association's Community Leadership Board, says in Nevada, that's likely to mean less care - and for fewer people.

"People make decisions about how much they're going to spend. If benefits are cut for Medicaid patients, or if payments to doctors go down and there's less access for patients, this is going to translate to potential adverse consequences, and some choices that might not be good ones for patients."

Nevada administers its own Medicaid program, but more than half the money to fund it is federal dollars. Jon Sasser, statewide advocacy coordinator for Legal Services programs, says the Medicaid rolls are exploding, and the state can't afford to carry the weight if the feds back out.

"We have in our Medicaid program, just since 2007 when the recession started, growth from 170,000 recipients to 300,000 - and it's boomed some 30,000 just in the last 12 months."

The American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and American Lung Association all have thrown their support behind the report from Families USA, a health-care consumer advocacy group. Its view is that Medicaid could be improved and costs lowered with greater efficiencies, not more federal cuts.

The report is online at familiesusa2.org.


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