States struggle with immigrants' care and funding mental hospitals

News outlets report on a variety of health issues at the state level including immigrants' challenges when trying to access new care in Massachusetts and a proposal by employees to cut some services but keep open a mental hospital in Maryland.

The Boston Globe reports: Gov. Deval Patrick's "administration has trumpeted its salvaging of health insurance for 28,000 legal immigrants, but the company hired to cover this group has been late assigning doctors and sending enrollment information to many patients, health and immigrant advocates say. Even some patients who received the necessary information are facing significant hurdles connecting with the doctors CeltiCare Health Plan of Massachusetts assembled in its new network, which sharply limits the community health centers and hospitals available to patients" (Lazar, 11/5).

The Baltimore Sun reports: "A state employee labor union has proposed slimming down operations at the Upper Shore Community Mental Health Center to save the Chestertown facility from being closed because of budget cuts. Gov. Martin O'Malley said he would review the proposal from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, but that any decisions would be made in the context of $300 million in budget cuts that are expected later this month. O'Malley, a Democrat, had proposed shuttering the state-run psychiatric hospital in a previous round of budget cuts" (Smitherman, 11/5).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.