Among the articles in the November newsletter are a piece on how some immigrants currently covered by the state’s General Assistance program may be able to retain their coverage under Healthy Pennsylvania and another on differences in how the state’s Medicaid expansion population will obtain behavioral health services from private option plans participating in that expansion.
Find the November newsletter here.
A lawsuit has been filed in Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court challenging the state’s termination of General Assistance payments to low-income Pennsylvanians and the redirection of some state social services funding into block grants for selected counties.
General Assistance grants are small sums of money that were paid monthly to low-income Pennsylvanians. Many were thought to use this money for food, medicine, and other necessities.
Pennsylvania’s counties have long received social services funding from the state. Now, some counties have voluntarily agreed to accept less money in exchange for greater flexibility in how they spend it. Some of the services provided with this money are delivered by hospitals, including the state’s private safety-net hospitals.
The legal challenge is on procedural rather than policy grounds, with the plaintiffs alleging that the legislation that ended the General Assistance grants and created the social services block grant program violated a provision in the state constitution that requires legislation to address only a single issue.
Read more about the General Assistance and social services block grant lawsuit in this Philadelphia Inquirer article
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