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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 Questions FL Medicaid Savings

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Friday, July 25, 2008   

Miami, FL – A consumer health-care advocacy group is questioning whether the State of Florida really will reap 20-percent savings from a pilot Medicaid insurance program that moves patients into private health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Florida CHAIN (Community Health Action Information Network) researchers checked the math, and the group is releasing numbers today that peg savings at four percent or even less.

Researcher Greg Mellowe says the discrepancy calls to mind stories about old-time, sleazy used car dealers.

"[The state is] simply inflating the sticker price so high that even a small reduction off the dealer price looks like a great deal."

It's especially important to get the numbers correct, Mellowe adds, because the legislature is looking to expand the program. Recommendations to the legislature include allowing Medicaid recipients the option to enroll in the HMO program or stay with standard Medicaid. Designing an entirely new cost-savings system also is being proposed.

Bringing to light these problems and discrepancies in the program is in everyone's best interest, Mellowe says.

"We see that the value of what we're buying is not there. Fixing the experiment, as opposed to letting it continue to run amok, will be the better choice for all Floridians."

The complete report is available online at .




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