Feb 8 2011
The struggle to balance state budgets will involve a long list of cuts - and health programs will be among the items at risk. Meanwhile, a health policy expert explains how state efforts at implementation of the federal health law add to this pressure.
The Wall Street Journal: Governors Chop Spending
Governors around the U.S. are proposing to balance their states' budgets with a long list of cuts and almost no new taxes, reflecting a goal by politicians from both parties to erase deficits chiefly by shrinking government (Dougherty and Merrick, 2/7).
Kaiser Health News: Alan Weil On States' Biggest Health Law Challenge - A KHN Interview
After a Florida district court judge's recent ruling that the new health law is unconstitutional, Florida Gov. Rick Scott reacted by saying his state could, for now, stop implementing it. Alan Weil, the executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy, calls that "a risky posture" - considering that the Jan. 31 court decision won't be the last (Carey and Serafini, 2/7).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.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.
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