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Trump announces Pam Bondi of FL as new attorney general pick, hours after Matt Gaetz withdraws; House passes bill targeting nonprofits in NY and nation; NM researcher studies why pedestrian and bicyclist deaths are on the rise; Researchers link better outcomes to MN adoption reforms.

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Trump has a new pick for Attorney General, his incoming "border czar" warns local Democratic officials not to impede mass deportation, and the House passes legislation that could target any nonprofit group accused of supporting terrorism.

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The CDC has a new plan to improve the health of rural Americans, updated data could better prepare folks for flash floods like those that devastated Appalachia, and Native American Tribes could play a key role in the nation's energy future.

Advocates: Repealing Obamacare Will Hit PA Children Hard

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Wednesday, January 25, 2017   

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Children's advocates say repeal of the Affordable Care Act would leave thousands of Pennsylvania kids without health insurance. President Trump and congressional Republicans already are taking steps to repeal the landmark health-care law.

According to Joan Benso, president and CEO of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, that would reverse the gains the state has made toward getting all children insured.

"Some kids could lose coverage because they had pre-existing conditions," she said. "Other children could lose coverage because they are over the age limit of when you could stay on your parents' health insurance prior to ACA."

Almost 90,000 young adults who have "aged-out" of their parents' health insurance or extended Medicaid for foster children would become uninsured.

Benso pointed out that when parents get health insurance, so do their children – and prior to the ACA, there were more than 130,000 uninsured parents in Pennsylvania.

"The expansion of Medicaid in our state helped more of those families come into coverage, and we watched the number of children who were uninsured decrease," she explained.

She said the Medicaid expansion helped reduce the uninsured rate for children in Pennsylvania to 4.1 percent, an all-time low.

While federal legislators have said the Affordable Care Act will be replaced by "something better," just what that replacement would be has not been made clear. Benso says the conversation needs to slow down until those details are on the table.
 
"We can examine them and say, 'What are the pros and cons of the alternative?'” she added.

Right now, she said, the federal government picks up about 90 percent of the cost of the Medicaid expansion and CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program, in Pennsylvania, money the state cannot afford to replace.


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