Pa.’s Medicaid Expansion for Long-Acting Birth Control; Maine’s Lousy Infrastructure Report Card
A Nexplanon birth control hormonal implant. Merck / AP Photo
Connecting state and local government leaders
Also in our State and Local Daily Digest: Is Pasadena, Texas redistricting racist?; another ransomware attack on an Indiana county; Boston PD social media monitoring raises discrimination concerns.
PUBLIC HEALTH | Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program has announced that it will now cover long-acting birth control for women right after they give birth. Previously, the contraceptives weren’t specifically covered, rather Medicaid gave hospitals a bundled payment for labor and delivery services. The cost of these devices can range from $300 to $1,000. Effective this Thursday, the state’s Medicaid fee-for-service program will include coverage of these contraceptives along with other birth-related procedures. [Newsworks]
INFRASTRUCTURE | The state of Maine’s infrastructure is the same or worse than it was in 2012 with energy, roads, bridges, airports, schools, water systems, and public transportation all receiving C grades along with seven other categories, according to its 2016 report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers. [Portland Press Herald]
VOTING RIGHTS | Johnny Isbell, the mayor of Pasadena, Texas, testifying in a federal voting rights trial on Monday, said that neither he nor the city council was racist when they pursued a plan to restructure the city council’s structure, a plan the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund said was discriminatory. One city councilmember, Ornaldo Ybarra, had earlier testified that he heard second-hand accounts of Isbell “was concerned ‘an invasion’ of Hispanics would take over the council if voters didn’t approve the the district system.” [Pasadena Patch]
RANSOMWARE | Computer viruses spread throughout Howard County, Indiana’s government systems via two malicious emails containing ransomware two weeks ago—the second such attack on a county in the Hoosier State this month. Madison County was less fortunate than Howard and had to pay the ransom to repair the damage. [Kokomo Perspective]
POLICING | “We need to have a sense of who is being monitored—what the criteria are for looking at someone’s social media statements, and potentially tracking them and monitoring them over time—to be able to know that this is not being used in a discriminatory manner,” said Boston City Council President Michelle Wu of local police’s plan to use $1.4 million in software to monitor Facebook and Twitter feeds. [Boston Herald]
IMMIGRATION | New York City officials may have established the municipal identification program, IDNYC, to help residents lacking driver’s licenses or passports access government services, but now two Staten Island Republican legislators want to use applications to potentially identify undocumented immigrants. The language of the law provides for the the destruction of the program’s records in the event a president unfriendly toward the undocumented, like Donald Trump, came to power, but the GOP is threatening to sue Mayor Bill de Blasio if he complies. [SILive.com]
STREETCAR | Charlotte, North Carolina’s City Council voted 8-2 to approve the $94.1 million, 2.5-mile streetcar line extension, after having to re-bid the project earlier this year when the two proposals that came in exceeded the city’s construction budget. Work will begin in 2017 and finish up by 2020. [The Charlotte Observer]
NEXT STORY: Farmers Push Back Against State Animal Welfare Laws