Health Affairs

This interesting and readable report is on the website of the Maternal Health Task Force, which I describe below. I thought the report was a must-read for grant-seekers in global health.

Following are some highlights from the report with a few added comments of my own and some relevant links.

Just a few funders are “highly focused” on maternal health, according to the report, whose title is U.S. Maternal Health Donors: A Landscape Analysis. The main ones to know about are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Others include the Fistula Foundation, Liya Kebede Foundation, and Preeclampsia Foundation, which are actually charities (not normally covered in GrantWatch). So, the field of donors is small, the report says.

The Maternal Health Task Force contracted with Global Health Visions (which is based in Brooklyn, New York) to do a thorough review of current non-governmental organization (NGO) donors in maternal health. The focus of the research was on private foundations, corporate donors, and individuals. Global Health Visions compiled its information by doing a literature review, online research, and forty interviews with various stakeholders. Research was also conducted at the Washington, D.C., office of the Foundation Center.

For those readers who may not know, the Maternal Health Task Force serves as a catalyst for addressing maternal health issues. (Funded by the Gates Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation, the task force is managed by the nonprofit EngenderHealth, which is a leading international reproductive health group striving to improve the quality of health care in the world’s poorest communities.) Global Health Visions is a consulting group that provides strategic guidance on formulating and implementing global health and development initiatives, according to its website.

Now, let me get back to the report itself. If one includes funders that focus on other global health and development issues but fund some maternal health activities or indirectly benefit maternal health, then Global Health Visions researchers found they had more latitude as to which grantmakers they could add to the list of maternal health funders. In this category, the report lists the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (it funds maternal health projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as in the United States) , the Segal Family Foundation, and others.

As an aside, the Segal Family Foundation, located in Watchung, New Jersey, focuses its efforts on sub-Saharan Africa and includes information about submitting proposals. (I found out from the foundation’s executive director that it is a private, family foundation.) The foundation also has a blog, which I will add to the GrantWatch Blogroll. The Segal Family Foundation says it “has been around for a few years,” but I had not heard of it until I read the Maternal Health Task Force’s report.

Now, back to the report: It also includes in this second category (of funders that support global health and development but are not exclusively devoted to maternal health) the William J. Clinton Foundation, which is a charity. Please note that this nonprofit started by President Clinton does not accept proposals at this time and does not make grants, according to its website. (Also, the Clinton Health Access Initiative is now a separate nonprofit from the Clinton Foundation.)

And if one further broadens the list of potential maternal health funders to grantmakers that have a program area on reproductive health and population issues, you can then include funders such as the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the report says. This is because some projects they fund may actually relate to maternal health, the report points out.

The report also has a section on corporate donors that have a strong focus on maternal health. The stand-outs in this category, according to the report, are Abbott Laboratories (a multifaceted health care company, which produces pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and more) and Johnson & Johnson.

“One of the obstacles to forming a cohesive approach” to addressing maternal health is the lack of agreement on what should or should not be included under the maternal health category, the report notes. “The clearest example of this is the inclusion or exclusion of family planning (FP) and abortion.” See section II of the report, “Defining Maternal Health.”

In addition, the report discusses trends in maternal health (for example, use of mobile devices to send text messages containing health information to women) and gaps in maternal health funding. According to people interviewed for the report, funding is needed for basic training of health workers, family planning, safe abortion, and other areas. Global Health Visions points out that there is also “a geographic funding gap”: Latin America, the Caribbean region, and francophone Africa are “largely neglected.”

Finally, the report discusses the pros and cons of donors forming a maternal health donor affinity group. (Grantmakers In Health, which many of you are familiar with, is an example of an affinity group.) As an example of a “con” or obstacle, Global Health Visions says that its “interviews revealed that corporate donors would be resistant to participating in such a group if one of the goals is to request additional financial commitments from them.” This sounds odd, but it is because “companies are bound by their profits and losses.”

The report’s researchers conclude that creating some sort of forum for addressing critical gaps in maternal health funding “and building on positive trends could have a significant impact on efforts to increase investments in and improve policies for maternal health.” They suggest a few ways to get people together to talk.

This April 2011 report, U.S. Maternal Health Donors is available online. I have just scratched the surface here—the report contains much more good information.

Read more insights in a May 24 post by Christopher Lindhal on the Maternal Health Task Force’s MHTF Blog.

Read more about the Maternal Health Task Force’s work in the GrantWatch Outcomes column, in the August 2011 issue of Health Affairs (release date: August 4.)

Jim Knickman, whom many of you know from his current job as president and CEO of the New York State Health Foundation (and/or his former job as a vice president of research and evaluation at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) wrote a column this week for the Huffington Post. His topic was diabetes prevention, which falls under one of the New York State Health Foundation’s three main funding areas. Here are some snippets from the July 18 column, which is titled “How to ‘Get Smart’ about Diabetes Prevention.”

I conclude by mentioning a couple of other funders in this area and a few related resources.

Incidence of diabetes has increased markedly, says Knickman, and in his July 18 Huffington Post column, he cites statistics to prove it. We need to disseminate effective strategies for preventing diabetes, such as a Diabetes Prevention Program, which is based on a major federally funded study and “shows promise for people with pre-diabetes” (people at high risk for the disease), he says.

Some community groups in New York State, such as YMCAs, have begun offering that program, and health insurers in that state (including UnitedHealth Group and others) “are beginning to reimburse for the program so that it can be sustained,” Knickman says. He notes that NYSHealth Foundation was among the early funders of a statewide initiative modeled on the federal study. That federal program has been found to not only reduce the risk of developing diabetes by 58 percent, but also to be cost effective.

Why has the Diabetes Prevention Program model “taken root” (gotten funding from health insurers), but some other seemingly good ideas have not? Knickman explains that there is good evidence that the program is effective. Funders should support a variety of innovative solutions. “But for those programs to be brought to scale, and for private insurers—or any funder—to invest in their replication,” he cautions that objective and rigorous evidence on the programs’ effects is essential. (Are you listening, grant seekers?)

Knickman points out that the Diabetes Prevention Program model has a fairly quick return on investment. Results in the short term are more likely to attract sustained funding from private health insurers. When an intervention reduces health care costs only over the long haul by preventing a disease’s onset or reducing a disease’s complications, “private insurers are generally unwilling to take this long view, because so many people change insurers from year to year,” he comments.

Knickman then mentions what foundations, government, individuals, and others can do to help prevent diabetes. For example, foundations “should be seeding pilot and demonstration programs that can help build the evidence about what works and what doesn’t, and to build the business case for effective interventions.” Government can encourage innovation and disseminate models that are effective—he mentions the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a component of the federal Affordable Care Act of 2010.

We now have the tools to get the diabetes epidemic under control, “but we need to marshal our resources” and act quickly to make progress, Knickman maintains.

Foundations funding diabetes projects:

• The Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation has allocated $100 million for a five-year initiative called Together on Diabetes. The aim is to improve health outcomes of people in the United States who live with Type 2 diabetes by such means as better education for patients on self-management of their disease and supportive services based in communities. The foundation’s mission is to reduce health disparities, so the diabetes initiative, which launched in November, focuses its efforts on adult populations disproportionately affected by Type 2 diabetes, the funder’s website notes. In June the foundation awarded five grants, totaling $1.5 million, to help African American women.

• Read about the NYSHealth Foundation’s Improving Diabetes Prevention and Management funding priority. The NYSHealth Foundation, as its name implies, focuses its grant making on projects to improve the health of people in New York State.

• The Patterson Foundation, in Sarasota, Florida, has a $5.6 million initiative called Bringing Science Home, which will at first explore how to help young adults who have Type I diabetes to achieve a good daily quality of life and navigate through important life stages, such as the transition from high school to college. This initiative is one of the foundation’s three Debilitating Diseases initiatives, and it focuses on chronic disease broadly, not just diabetes. Patterson says that this exploration of diabetes will affect educational and care strategies for many other conditions. The foundation will be sharing the initiative’s findings and recommendations with others to inform the field.

Grant seekers: The Patterson Foundation has chosen its partner, the University of South Florida, for the initiative and will not accept or seek grant proposals or additional partners for Bringing Science Home, its website states. (This foundation was actually established in 1997, but although I am a long-time follower of health philanthropy, I just heard of it a few months ago.)

Related resources:

“Bringing Diabetes Prevention to National Scale,” Sachin Jain of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and John Brooks of the Joslin Diabetes Center, Health Affairs Blog, July 20.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): information on diabetes.

“The Economic Burden of Diabetes,” Timothy Dall of the Lewin Group and coauthors, Health Affairs, February 2010. Novo Nordisk Inc. funded this study.

“Report from the Field: The Diabetes Prevention Program: How the Participants Did It,” Susan Brink, Health Affairs, January/February 2009. Read about this federally funded, “landmark clinical trial.”

“Rhode Island Foundation Funds Innovations in Diabetes and Cancer Care,” Advancing Medicine, Touching Lives (magazine of Rhode Island Hospital, in Providence), Winter 2011 issue. Read about the foundation’s funding of the Yes! I Can Be Healthy (Type 2) diabetes group education program during 2010 and its successes. It looks like the program falls under this one of the foundation’s three health target areas: “programs that improve primary care management of chronic conditions.” At the time the article was written, the program had a waiting list of 100 people.

Looking ahead, Health Affairs journal plans to publish a thematic issue on diabetes in January 2012. Watch for it!

Medicaid has been in the news over the past few weeks, as President Obama and members of Congress debate whether to make cuts to the federal-state program for the poor and disabled (and to other large entitlement programs) that could help reduce the federal deficit. GrantWatch Blog has gathered just a sampling of what foundations have recently funded regarding Medicaid, including academic research, an effort to educate congressional staffers about the program, and advocacy. 

Medicaid Primer

Let me start with the basics—the Alliance for Health Reform, a nonpartisan health policy education group, held a briefing in March called “Medicaid: A Primer on the Federal-State Partnership.” The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, part of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, cosponsored the event with the Alliance. Among the speakers was Cindy Mann of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Clicking on the primer link above will get you to the webcast of the event and other resource materials.

New working paper

“The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year,” a July National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, by Amy Finkelstein and coauthors, evaluates the effects of enrolling in Medicaid. The authors used a randomized controlled study design based on the state of Oregon’s lottery to allocate 10,000 spots in its Medicaid program to some of the 90,000 low-income, previously uninsured adults on a waiting list. Medicaid coverage resulted in substantively higher use of health care, lower out-of-pocket medical expenses and medical debt, and “better self-reported physical and mental health” relative to being uninsured. Jon Gruber, Joe Newhouse, and Katherine Baicker are among the numerous coauthors of this paper.

The authors point out that it is natural to try to generalize the results of this experiment to other contexts, including the planned 2014 Medicaid expansions under the Affordable Care Act. “Any such attempt comes with important caveats,” they state. (See pages 34–35.)

Funders of the study include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF); the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, Alfred P. Sloan, and Smith Richardson Foundations; the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF); and various federal government agencies.

The paper is available for free download from both the CHCF and the RWJF websites.

Other mentions of the working paper:

I found the CHCF’s summary of this study a bit easier to understand (for the layperson) than the research paper itself, which is written for a high-level audience. The foundation succinctly provides some context: Some 90,000 low-income adults on a waiting list applied for the approximately 10,000 openings in Oregon Medicaid back in 2008, and “this overwhelming response” enabled the authors of the NBER working paper “to conduct the first randomized controlled study of insuring previously uninsured adults.” The CHCF has bullet points of some key study findings discovered after the 10,000 adults had been enrolled in Oregon Medicaid for almost a year. For example, the study found that having such Medicaid coverage increased the probability of having a regular physician office or clinic for primary care by 70 percent. However, having Medicaid coverage did not reduce emergency department use, and the researchers also found that annual health expenses increased by 25 percent, “underscoring the vital importance of finding ways to deliver care more efficiently,” the CHCF summary notes. The study is ongoing.

“Sounding Off on Medicaid’s ‘Big Difference’ in Quality of Life,” Andrew Villegas, July 7, on Capsules: the KHN Blog (published by Kaiser Health News, which is affiliated with the Kaiser Family Foundation). In this Blogwatch post, Villegas has a round-up of what other blogs (including the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, Mother Jones, and the National Review’s Critical Condition blog) have said about the NBER working paper.

Related resource:

“Oregon Medicaid Experiment: Not as Convincing as You May Think,” Paul Winfree, July 8, on the Foundry, the Heritage Foundation’s blog on conservative policy news. At the conclusion of his post, Winfree comments, “This debate needs to shift entirely away from comparing those on Medicaid to the uninsured. Instead, we need to know whether people on Medicaid have better or worse outcomes relative to those with private insurance coverage and whether the benefits are worth the ever-higher cost of Medicaid.”

Beneficiaries

Recent grant awarded:

The New York Community Trust recently awarded a $50,000 grant to Medicaid Matters New York to bring the consumer voice to Medicaid reform debates, according to its June 2011 newsletter. Medicaid Matters is a statewide coalition of more than 130 organizations (including the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, the William F. Ryan Community Health Center, and the American Diabetes Association). Its mission is to make sure policy makers see “the importance of Medicaid to low-income and medically-vulnerable New Yorkers” and see its effect on people. Lara Kassel, who is coordinator of Medicaid Matters, was among those appointed to New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s (D) Medicaid Redesign Team; other members include Kenneth E. Raske (president of the Greater New York Hospital Association), Mike Hogan (commissioner of the state’s Office of Mental Health), and Ann F. Monroe (president of the Community Health Foundation of Western and Central New York), according to a January press release from Cuomo’s office.

Medicaid Spending

Blog posts:

“Achieving Medicare and Medicaid Savings: Cutting Eligibility and Benefits, Trimming Payments, or Ensuring the Right Care?” by Karen Davis and Stu Guterman of the Commonwealth Fund on the Commonwealth Fund Blog, July 13. The authors look at three possible ways to cut spending on these entitlement programs and provide insights.

“Medicaid Spending Variations Driven More by Volume than Price, Says Study in new Health Affairs,” Chris Fleming on Health Affairs Blog, July 7. Fleming, who is social media manager at the journal, blogs on a July 2011 Health Affairs article by Todd P. Gilmer of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Richard G. Kronick, now of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). (Kronick is on leave from UCSD while he serves in the Obama administration.) The authors’ work is the first study of its kind to examine state and regional differences in Medicaid spending, Fleming notes. The variation is wide. Gilmer suggests in the blog post that “by increasing access to primary care and experimenting with team-based delivery models and low-cost providers, states may be able to improve quality [of care] while reducing Medicaid spending.” Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO), an RWJF national program, funded the authors’ work.

Related resources:

“Agreement on Debt Talks: Health Groups Dislike Proposals,” Robert Pear, New York Times, July 12. Pear says that ideas on cutting Medicare and Medicaid put forth by those negotiating the federal budget “have managed to provoke opposition from almost every major group that represents beneficiaries and health care providers.”

“Report: Systems Designed to Catch Billions of Dollars in Medicare, Medicaid Fraud Inadequate,” Associated Press (published in the Washington Post), July 12. This article on a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says the federal systems “don’t even include Medicaid data” that could be analyzed to detect possible fraud.

“What a Debt Ceiling Deal Could Mean for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security,” Alec MacGillis, Washington Post, July 12. Among the questions addressed in this FAQ piece: “Are people going to be cut from the Medicaid rolls?”

Quality of Care

Journal article:

“Reinventing Medicaid: State Innovations to Qualify and Pay for Patient-Centered Medical Homes Show Promising Results,” Mary Takach of the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), Health Affairs, July 2011. Takach describes patient-centered medical home initiatives in seventeen states. In the medical home model of primary care, a team, led by a primary care provider, tends to the varied needs of patients and provides “whole-person, comprehensive, coordinated, and patient-centered care.” Although the initiatives are still in their infancy, “early results are encouraging,” Takach states. The Commonwealth Fund supported this research.

New York Medicaid

“Medicaid in New York: The Road Ahead,” Michael Birnbaum of the United Hospital Fund, April 13 presentation at the David Rogers Health Policy Colloquium, a weekly event at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. (By the way, according to the Medical Center Archives of New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, the late David Rogers was the first president of the RWJF and the son of the well-know psychiatrist Carl Rogers.) Included in Birnbaum’s PowerPoints was the startling statistic that spending for the elderly and disabled category of  New York Medicaid beneficiary has increased by 60 percent in the 2000–2010 period. Among the United Hospital Fund’s major initiatives is its Medicaid Institute, which Birnbaum directs as part of his work at the fund.

What improvements are needed for New York Medicaid so that it can be integrated with the health insurance exchange being designed for the state (as part of federal health reform)? On May 16 the United Hospital Fund released a report exploring that topic, funded by the New York State Health Foundation. The report, by Danielle Holahan, is titled Coordinating Medicaid and the Exchange in New York. See the “Consumer Communications” section and a useful timetable of key dates in the countdown to January 2014, when various provisions of the Affordable Care Act are supposed to be up and running.

Medicaid Prescription Drug Costs

“Alabama Cuts Medicaid Drug Costs by Examining Pharmacy Receipts,” Christine Vestal on the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Stateline.org (a nonpartisan online news service), July 14. This state in the Deep South found that it pays to scrutinize pharmacy receipts, Vestal reports. The Alabama Medicaid director aimed to attack “fraudulent prices published by major drug makers.” Alabama has now come up with a new pricing method for meds paid for under Medicaid and got federal approval for it. A few months later, Oregon got approval to use the same method. Both states are sensitive to local pharmacies’ need to make a profit. Now HHS “is urging other states to add Alabama’s pricing model to their arsenals of ways to cut Medicaid costs,” the article notes.

Their topics are health reform, long-term care (PACE), and global health—specifically noncommunicable disease. In case you missed the Health Affairs/GrantWatch Tweet and/or e-alert when they were sent out, the list of most-read posts follows.

1. “How to Educate the Public about the ACA: Recommendations from CaliforniaSpeaks,” by Tom Campbell of AmericaSpeaks; Jesse Sostrin of Wilshire Health and Community Services, as well as AmericaSpeaks; and Barbara Masters, independent consultant and former public policy director at the California Endowment, June 6. The authors report on a project, funded by the Blue Shield of California Foundation, to educate Californians about the new federal health reform law. The project held forums that used AmericaSpeaks’ Twenty-first Century Town Meeting format.

2. “Southern Foundations Discuss PACE: Comprehensive Care to Help Elderly Age in Place,” by Tina Markanda of the Duke Endowment, May 6. GrantWatch Blog invited Markanda to report on a webinar sponsored by the Southeastern Council on Foundations. She focused her post on the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), “an evidence-based model.” Markanda spoke during the webinar about the Duke Endowment’s experiences with PACE—outcomes from the three sites it funds; the executive director of the PACE site in Burlington, North Carolina, also spoke. Webinar participants “also discussed the unique needs and challenges of operating PACE in rural communities,” Markanda said.

3. “How Do We Address Noncommunicable Disease? Lessons Learned from the Global Health Partnerships Program,” by Mark Spires of Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and Atiya Weiss of Pfizer Inc, June 2. The authors report on what has been learned by the Global Health Partnerships program, which is funded by Pfizer, the large pharmaceutical company, and the Pfizer Foundation. The authors state, “The global fight against noncommunicable diseases [such as cancer] and the risk factors for them, such as tobacco use, have largely been neglected when it comes to the distribution of overseas development aid” to low- and middle-income countries. This post is relevant and timely as the United Nations will be holding a summit on noncommunicable diseases in September.

Rankings compiled June 30, 2011.

GrantWatch Blog has been on its Fourth of July break. Below, in this post-holiday edition I’ve gathered links to several blog posts that you may want to add to your reading list.

Global Health

Malaria:

“Saving Lives: When the Impossible Becomes Possible,” Alexandra Farnum on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Foundation Blog, June 24. In this “call to arms” post, Farnum, program officer in global health policy and advocacy at Gates, mentions the potential of ultimately ending deaths and illness from malaria by intensifying current efforts to control the disease and investing in “development of new drugs, innovative ways to protect children and families from mosquitoes, and a malaria vaccine.”

Sanitation:

“Wanted: Sanitation Revolution 2.0,” Frank Rijsberman on the Gates Foundation’s Foundation Blog, June 27. Rijsberman, who directs this funder’s Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WaSH) program, says that the Gates WaSH team will be launching a “sanitation-focused program strategy” later this month at a conference in Africa. According to a report from the World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2.6 billion people in developing countries do not have “access to a safe, hygienic toilet,” he notes.

Health Care for the Elderly

“Beyond the Doctor’s Office in Eldercare,” Luci Draayer of Lutheran Family Services of Colorado, on the Colorado Trust’s CommunityConnections Blog, June 29. This post “highlights the importance of coordinating transitions” in providing care to the elderly to ensure the best possible health outcomes. Draayer notes that “community geriatric professionals have long realized that the straight-forward medical model of the past is not sufficient to produce desired outcomes” and that integrating care across multiple settings is vitally important. Lutheran Family Services is a grantee of the trust.

Health Professions Workforce

“The End of Private Practice?” on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Human Capital Blog, June 22. Citing an article in the Washington Post, this blog post says that “hospitals are trying to lure primary care physicians away from private practice.”

Health Reform

“KidsWell Campaign Launches Online Resource for Health Reform Implementation,” Kimberley Chin of the Atlantic Philanthropies, on Say Ahhh! A Children’s Health Policy Blog (written by staff of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families), June 30. Chin, a program executive, tells us about a new website, www.kidswellcampaign.org, which Atlantic is funding. I went onto the site—it describes itself there as “a state and national advocacy and organizing campaign to ensure successful implementation of health care reform on behalf of children.” The site, which is operated by Manatt Health Solutions, aims to help state and national child health advocates, but not all of the content is strictly about kids. Searching by individual state yields interesting and recent information.

Health Systems Reform/Innovation

“Funder’s Forum: Laura K. Landy, President/CEO, Fannie E. Rippel Foundation,” Philanthropy News Digest’s PhilanTopic Blog, May 20. This post, on one of the Foundation Center’s blogs, contains an interview with the leader of Rippel, which is located in Morristown, New Jersey.

HIV/AIDS

“Commentary: Now Is Not the Time to Forget about AIDS,” Vignetta Charles of AIDS United, Philanthropy News Digest’s PhilanTopic Blog, June 1. This post mentions funding awarded by the Walmart Foundation and other donors.

Mental Health Care

“On Trauma and Children’s Mental Health,” Vicky Coffee-Fletcher on the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health’s Hogg Blog, June 30. A program officer at the foundation, Coffee-Fletcher discusses its conference “Young Minds Matter: Addressing Trauma’s Impact on Children, Youth, and Communities.” The post links to the speakers’ PowerPoint presentations. Hogg is located at the University of Texas at Austin, and focuses on strategies with “the greatest potential to benefit mental health in Texas.”

Safety Net

“New Report Shines Spotlight on Health Care,” Heather Bennett of Direct Relief International on the Council on Foundations’ RE: Philanthropy blog, June 23. Bennett writes about her organization’s “The State of the Safety Net: A Snapshot of America’s Nonprofit Community Clinics, Free Clinics, and Community Health Centers,” a fifteen-page document.

Community Health Centers:

“Health Center Cuts Jeopardize Lives, Dollars,” Annette Koval of the Colorado Community Health Network, on the Colorado Health Foundation’s Health Relay blog, June 21. Koval discusses state and federal funding cuts to centers.

Coverage of Childless Adults:

Related resources:

“Childless Adults to Get New Health Coverage,” Daniel Weintraub, California Health Report, June 30. (This blog is part of HealthyCal.org, which has initial funding from the California Endowment and the SCAN Foundation.) Read about a new program for single, childless adults in California with incomes up to approximately $14,500 and how it is being paid for.

“Arizona Medicaid Cuts to Go into Effect,” John Gramlich, in “Today’s Take” of Stateline.org, July 5. This state “will begin denying health insurance coverage to childless adults” on July 8, notes Gramlich, who cites Capitol Media Services. Stateline.org is a news service of the Pew Center on the States (part of the Pew Charitable Trusts).