The SCAN Foundation

California’s perfect storm of job loss, stagnant wages, and massive budget cuts threatens the economic security of women and their families by undermining programs they depend on and by restricting access to education and training. This includes older women and women with disabilities, for which cuts to assistance have compromised their ability to afford necessities such as housing and groceries. The report, "Falling Behind: The Impact of the Great Recession and the Budget Crisis on California’s Women and their Families," produced by the California Budget Project, highlights related statistics to provide the most comprehensive look at the impact of recent budget actions on women in the state.

State aging and disability agencies are operating in an era of state agency reorganization, re-conceptualization of state government, and restructuring of long-term services and supports delivery systems and financing. "The State of the States Survey 2011: State Aging and Disability Agencies in Times of Change," released by the National Association of States United for Aging and Disabilities, highlights the roles and responsibilities of state aging and disabilities agencies. It also discusses key themes driving continued change, including state budgets and the growing demand for services, nationwide loss of historical knowledge, and rapid expansion of Medicaid managed long-term care (MMLTC).

Patients who have complex health needs require both medical and social services and supports from a wide variety of providers and caregivers, and the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) offers a promising model for providing comprehensive, coordinated care. Smaller practices, however, face particular challenges in coordinating care for these patients. The paper, "Coordinating Care for Adults With Complex Care Needs in the Patient-Centered Medical Home: Challenges and Solutions," released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, explores the current landscape of PCMH services for patients with complex needs, details five programs that have addressed the challenges of caring for these patients, and offers programmatic and policy changes that can help smaller practices better deliver services to all patients, including those with the most complex health needs.

In December 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services approved a Section 1115 Medicaid Demonstration waiver for Texas that is modeled, in part, on a demonstration waiver that has been underway in California since November 2010. A recently released fact sheet, produced by the Kaiser Family Foundation, compares and contrasts key provisions of the California and Texas demonstration waivers. Both waivers affect hundreds of thousands of Medicaid beneficiaries including seniors and people with disabilities, involve billions of federal Medicaid matching funds, and are designed, in part, to promote changes in the health care delivery system that will result in better care for individuals, better population health, and reductions in costs through system improvements.