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Senate advancing measure to nullify federal laws
A handful of senators have revived a proposal to allow Arizona to ignore federal laws, setting up more potential showdowns between the state and the Obama administration.
Brewer budget plans for slow growth, cautious spending
Gov. Jan Brewer is treading carefully and offering a multiyear budget that plans that includes hundreds of millions in one-time expenditures, but gives the state a financial cushion for the coming fiscal cliff in 2014.
The Governor’s Office today unveiled budget plan for fiscal year 2013 and the remainder of 2012 that is projected to leave the state in the black by about $329 million [...]
Federal money for health exchange puts Brewer in bind
The $30 million that Arizona received this week from the Obama administration will help the state develop and design a health insurance exchange website that can seamlessly interact with Medicaid.
But the pot of money, particularly given its size, potentially poses legal and political complications for Gov. Jan Brewer, who is against the federal health care overhaul and led Arizona in sui[...]
Groups push for affordable, consumer-driven health exchange
Consumer and health groups are pushing for a state-run health insurance exchange that they say should be transparent and not dominated by the insurance industry.
Some states move forward with exchanges despite opposition to health care law
Arizona is far from alone in balking at the creation of a state-run health insurance exchange, though other GOP-led states are putting aside their opposition to the federal health care law and implementing one of its more controversial provisions.
Beat ’em or join ’em? Federal health care law forces lawmakers to decide what they dislike less
By offering states the option to run a key piece of the federal health care overhaul, the law is forcing Arizona’s lawmakers into the ultimate conundrum: Do nothing and potentially lose significant control over the state’s health care system or help implement a program they’d rather see in the gutter.
‘We’ the experts
Among the many government entities that are created by ObamaCare, one is especially troubling because it is comprised of a group of unelected government bureaucrats who will make critical changes in how the nation’s seniors receive health care.
Lawmakers split on two AHCCCS plans, while AzHHA may have to wait for both to fail
A bed tax proposed by the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association is a distant Plan C in the Legislature as lawmakers look to overhaul AHCCCS, but the trade group is hoping it might win by default if lawsuits block the state from cutting its Medicaid program.
Brewer’s new plan: freeze AHCCCS without the cuts
Gov. Jan Brewer changed tracks on her plans to overhaul the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, announcing a new plan that would freeze enrollment for childless adults but wouldn’t impose the massive cuts she’d long advocated.
Don’t ask, do yell: AHCCCS knew it might not need fed permission to cut patients, but state made a fuss anyway
On Feb. 15, when U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius informed Arizona that it could cut 250,000 people from Medicaid without federal permission, it wasn’t nearly as much of a surprise for Gov. Jan Brewer as it was for most Arizonans.
Sebelius: Arizona doesn’t need waiver to cut 250,000 people from AHCCCS
Arizona officials who spent nearly a year railing against the federal government for not allowing the state to cut its Medicaid rolls got some startling news Tuesday: Federal permission isn’t necessary for the state to drop 250,000 people from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System.
Step one in getting federal spending under control?
Free-market economists have been warning both Democrats and Republicans for some time now — indeed, for decades — that government cannot simply continue its spending binge without paying a price.
