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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Fewer Workers, Greater Need: OR Safety Net Stretches Tight

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Friday, January 22, 2010   

SALEM, Ore. - The Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) estimates the demand for food stamps will grow this year to include one in five Oregonians, and the Oregon Health Plan will have to accommodate another 135,000 people. At CareOregon, a Medicaid provider for the state, demand is already increasing; the caseload is up 20 percent in the last year. The organization reports, if Ballot Measures 66 and 67 fail, the state plans to cut another 12 to 15 percent from the Oregon Health Plan it administers.

Pam Mariea-Nason, CareOregon's director of health policy and community engagement, says the cuts would affect many people at the edge of poverty.

"They have to qualify; there are very stringent requirements for people to be able to qualify to get the services. Most people are on the Medicaid program for short periods of time, and the majority of those people are people who are in families with kids."

70 percent of the new caseload is children, she says, and about half the CareOregon members are working, but at low-wage jobs that don't include health insurance. Both ballot measures are tax increases - one on high-income households, the other on corporations - being proposed to increase state income by more than $700 million a year. The voting ends next Tuesday.

Those who don't want the ballot measures to pass have charged that most of the money raised would go to pay salaries and benefits for state employees and teachers. But, Mariea-Nason says that doesn't reflect what she sees.

"We spend a lot of time looking at the state budget, and I certainly haven't seen anything like that in the state budget. I think there's been a lot of credible analysis that would demonstrate that's just not the case."

Instead, she says her organization's experience with state government is that there are too few employees for an increasing workload as a result of the economy.

The ODHS forecast is at www.oregon.gov/DHS/data/forecasts/2009/fall-preview.pdf.




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