Latest news with #CentralArkansas
The Guardian
24-06-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘People are going to die': how Medicaid work requirements cost people their health insurance
Kelly Fountain of central Arkansas plans to move her family out of the state if work requirements are enacted for Medicaid, given the issues and lack of resources she has already faced in obtaining support for her 24-year-old son with disabilities, Colby. 'If Trump's budget is passed as it is currently written, we will be leaving Arkansas,' said Fountain. 'Our politicians here know very well that people are going to lose their Medicaid, they're depending on it. People are not only going to lose their healthcare, they're going to die.' Fountain's dilemma is one that millions of Americans may face if Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' passes through Congress in its current form. The bill will cut Medicaid across the US by 7.6 million to 10.3 million people, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, with the majority of the cuts as a result of work reporting requirements, increasing barriers for enrollment and renewal of Medicaid coverage, and limiting states' ability to raise state Medicaid funds through provider taxes. Medicaid recipients and advocates are warning of the negative impacts of work reporting requirements, pointing to the examples of the two states to have already tried work requirements for Medicaid, Georgia and, briefly, Arkansas. In both states, there was a significant increase in individuals without health insurance and medical debt, and no boost in employment, one of the Trump administration's key arguments for imposing the requirements. The Medicaid work reporting requirements would begin in December 2026, with proponents of the reporting requirement for able-bodied adults to work, volunteer or attend an education program at least 80 hours a month. The change comes after the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, claimed Medicaid recipients were 'taking advantage', 'cheating' and 'defrauding' the system. Researchers at the Yale Public School of Health estimate the cuts to health programs, including Medicaid and Affordable Care Act marketplace unenrollment, could lead to 42,500 lost lives annually. The work requirements would require older adults not yet eligible for Medicare, people with disabilities, and caregivers to navigate the reporting requirements to maintain Medicaid eligibility. In Arkansas, work requirements were enacted in 2018, only to be cancelled months later after a federal court stepped in to block the requirements. Kelly Fountain's son, Colby, was born with a rare genetic condition, haploinsufficiency syndrome, and has autism and other health and developmental issues associated with the disorder. She explained the only way they were able to have the expensive genetic testing done was through Medicaid, which they have also relied on to cover Colby's medical care. It took 13 years on a waitlist waiver program for Colby to be able to get into a community-based program where he is learning to do tasks such as grocery shop, cook, or count money, but she said the lack of resources for employment, such as support through employment and transportation, has made it infeasible for Colby to work. 'He still can't work because there's no supportive employment. He would need to have staff with him the whole time he's working in order to train him properly. That does not exist here,' said Fountain. 'At one point in time, if we're fortunate, we're all going to be disabled at some point in our lives. We all deserve healthcare. It should not depend on whether or not we can find a job. We should be able to access healthcare when we are at our sickest and most vulnerable, and right now Congress wants to eliminate that availability.' About 813,000 children and adults in Arkansas are currently enrolled in Medicaid, covering over 25% of the state's population. 64% of adults on Medicaid in Arkansas are working. Most Medicaid enrollees classified as 'able-bodied' are predominantly older women and only comprise 15.8% of the total non-working population of Medicaid beneficiaries between the ages of 18 to 64, according to an analysis by the Milbank Quarterly. 'Most who are not working because they can't find a job, are disabled, children, or elderly,' added Fountain. 'We don't have consistent internet here. They don't have access to training programs, transition services, and they have understaffed the department of health and services so badly they have to submit their paperwork three, four or five times before DHS says they received it.' Arkansas's work reporting requirements pertained to adults ages 30 to 49 with no children, and led to unenrollment of 18,000 individuals before the court blocked further implementation, while no changes to employment were recorded. Research on the requirements in Arkansas found the administrative costs to implement the policy were $26.1m and also resulted in increased medical debt and delaying of medical care for those who lost health insurance coverage. Camille Richoux, the health policy director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families said the work requirements were more of a 'paperwork requirement' and led to confusion. She said about 95% of individuals who lost Medicaid coverage were meeting the requirements or should have qualified for an exemption. 'It was a mess,' said Richoux. 'The rollout was chaotic and resulted in just a massive loss of insurance. Employment did not increase, wages did not increase during this time. The only impact was more people becoming uninsured.' To report their work Medicaid beneficiaries had to use a website, which was glitchy, unreliable, and poorly disseminated to the people affected, she argued. Despite the serious issues with the requirements, Arkansas is seeking another waiver to impose work requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries, in addition to the requirements in the federal spending bill. 'We could actually have a situation in Arkansas where we have two different work requirements with different components,' added Richoux. 'Work requirements are not some incentive for getting a job. They're just a punishment if you don't do things right, or if you miss a paperwork, or if the state makes a lot of errors, and that can turn into an entire crisis in your life.' In Georgia, work requirements enacted in July 2023 have led to similar results, with significant barriers for Medicaid enrollment for eligible beneficiaries due to delays, application issues, and extensive administrative costs of nearly $58m. Luke Seaborn, a 54-year-old mechanic from Jefferson, Georgia, became the public face of Georgia Pathways to Coverage, Governor Brian Kemp's insurance program for impoverished Georgians, when it was unveiled last year. Pathways included Medicaid work requirements. Seaborn has since turned on the legislation, telling ProPublica earlier this year his benefits were cancelled due to red tape twice in the past year. 'I used to think of Pathways as a blessing,' Seaborn told ProPublica. 'Now, I'm done with it.' 'States are not ready or equipped to implement these work requirements, and that's going to cause even more harm. What happened in Georgia was they spent all this money on paying consultants to implement a very complicated bureaucratic system to see if people are working, and it slowed down their processing of Medicaid applications and Snap [food stamps] applications for everyone else,' said Natalie Kean, director of federal health advocacy at the advocacy and legal non-profit Justice in Aging, who noted the proposed Medicaid cuts are also shifting more federal costs on to states. 'We know from history, when states have budget shortfalls, they tend to cut home-based care for older adults and people with disabilities first, so even the indirect impacts of this will be really harmful,' Kean added. 'What work requirements amount to are penalties for people who lose their job, or when we're thinking about older adults, for people who have to retire early or often having chronic conditions that prevent them from working full time. These requirements would mean that when you get into that situation, you also lose your healthcare, or you can't get healthcare in the first place.' Back in Arkansas, Nancy Morrell, a live-in caregiver in Eureka Springs, said the push for Medicaid cuts had already affected her family. In April 2025, she was notified that the hours that Medicaid would cover for her care of her sister Carolyn, with cerebral palsy, would be reduced by 75 a month despite no changes in her care needs. 'I don't know why they decided to cut them,' Morrell said. 'There was just no sympathy, really whatsoever. It was just, this is what it is, and this is what it's going to be. And of course, they send you the papers that say that you can ask to appeal it, which is the process that we're going through right now.' Morrell claimed a staffer with the Arkansas health department told her 'you can be paid to feed her. You just can't be paid when she's chewing. So you have to take some time off of that.' The staffer did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Arkansas department of human services declined to comment, citing confidentiality requirements. Morrell argued she takes care of her sister 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and is only compensated for eight of those hours. She views the additional cuts to those hours as a push to put her sister in a more expensive care facility. 'We take care of her 24 hours a day, but we're only paid for a third of that, basically. And yet, Medicaid is willing to cut this now,' added Morrell. 'The push here is for me to put Carolyn in a nursing facility where she can't even push a call button for help. She would die within a few months. Which is exactly what they want to save Medicaid funds.' A spokesperson for the Arkansas department of human services claimed the waiver the state is seeking for work requirements, called Pathway to Prosperity, 'is an innovative new approach to a work and community engagement requirement' that will assist 'beneficiaries attain economic independence, and by extension improve their health. Beneficiaries who are not exempt and who actively choose not to participate in qualifying activities, which could include training, education, employment and Success Coaching, will be suspended from their Medicaid coverage.' They claimed the program was 'informed by lessons from Arkansas Works, but it is fundamentally different in several key ways, including the focus on data matching rather than individual reporting'. The Georgia department of community health and White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
NBC Sports
11-05-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
The improbable story of how Central Arkansas arrived at its first-ever NCAA men's golf regional
The most improbable team in this year's NCAA regionals? Central Arkansas makes a compelling case. The Bears will compete as the 13th seed starting Monday at Montreux Golf and Country Club in Reno, Nevada, after recently capturing the program's first Atlantic Sun Conference title. It's a remarkable feat considering this team, even with 13 players on the roster, had zero returning rounds from last season and then saw its coach, Jay Rees, unexpectedly retire after the fall semester. Since Rees' retirement, Central Arkansas, which began the spring ranked outside the top 200 in Division I, has been led by 24-year-old Josh Turnock, a Bears alum turned graduate assistant who had just completed his M.B.A. program last December. 'It's a weird situation to be in,' Turnock said. 'I told the guys in our first team meeting of the spring that this isn't normal. Most of them are freshmen, so they only had Jay for one semester, and now they get a guy who is likely only going to be here for one semester. I told them to do the best they could with the situation that we were given and to just work hard. No one was expecting much from us, so we really did have nothing to lose… 'I still can't believe this happened.' Turnock, a native of Manchester, England, played four years at Central Arkansas before graduating in 2022. He then applied for a 12-month work visa and spent a year working for a company that helps international athletes find college scholarships. He returned to school prior to last season to pursue his M.B.A., and he'd been applying for jobs when Rees announced his retirement because of family health reasons. The logical replacement was Turnock, that is until he accepted a job offer to be a business intelligence analyst. But the offer was rescinded just a few hours later because of a mistake by the hiring department. After that happened, Central Arkansas' director of athletics, Matt Whiting, offered Turnock the interim head coaching position. 'I happy that he waited around and was still happy to offer me the coaching role,' said Turnock, who was assisted at a few events this spring by the school's head of IT. Turnock's squad, which features players representing 10 different countries, soon turned shock into motivation, and upon starting the spring semester, proceeded to post top-5s in five of six tournaments after zero in the fall. Leading the charge were two low-level transfers, New Mexico Junior College's Kalle Svederman of Sweden and Austrian Noah Blaickner of Park University, an NAIA program in Gilbert, Arizona, who combined for seven top-10s, including two wins, one apiece. Blaickner, who only played once in the fall but markedly improved his short game during the winter months, added a runner-up at conference. The pair remain the only players on the roster ranked inside the top 500 nationally. As a team, Central Arkansas was ranked No. 172 in the country, good enough for only the ninth seed, heading into the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship. 'We were just waiting for the week where all five guys played well at the same time,' Turnock said, 'and that's what happened.' On the eve of the conference championship, held at Kinderlou Forest Golf Club in Valdosta, Georgia, Turnock told his guys, 'No one's thinking about us, but after tomorrow they will.' The Bears responded by shooting 17 under in the first round and grabbing an eight-shot lead. They followed it up in 7 under and were four clear of the field through 36 holes. 'That last day was trying to hold on basically,' Turnock said. 'They were nervous, but none of them were scared, and they always believed they could win it.' The Bears ending up holding off Stetson by a single shot to capture the program's first conference title of any kind since it won the 1972 AIC Championship and advance to their first-ever NCAA regional. Central Arkansas has already posted the head-coaching position and is expected to name a full-time replacement by the end of May. Turnock, who has had more interviews for jobs in his degree field this spring, doesn't expect to be coaching after this season, though he said he's still not totally decided. With the transfer portal, the futures of the players are uncertain as well. One thing is for sure, though. 'This is probably going to be the biggest tournament these guys have played in,' Turnock said of regionals. Expectations will be even lower for the Bears. But once again, they'll have everything to gain.
USA Today
03-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Wisconsin basketball 2025 transfer portal departure, commitment tracker
Wisconsin basketball 2025 transfer portal departure, commitment tracker Although the NCAA Tournament Final Four and national title game are still to be played, the college basketball transfer cycle is in full swing. The 2025 window opened on March 24, immediately following the tournament's second round. It will remain open until April 22. Players have until that date to enter their names. Once in, there is no time limit on committing to a new program. Wisconsin has major needs to address this transfer cycle. The program said goodbye to a large senior class after the 2024-25 season, including star wing John Tonje, starters Max Klesmit and Steven Crowl, and key bench contributors Carter Gilmore and Kamari McGee. It returns John Blackwell and Nolan Winter to lead the lineup, with starting spots at combo guard, wing and forward all up for grabs. The program is already trending for several top transfer targets. We have live updates on those pursuits here. With several Wisconsin players already gone to the portal and commitments imminent, here is an up-to-date tracker of the program's finalized transfer activity. (Last update: April 3) OUT: Freshman point guard Daniel Freitag 2024-25 Stats: 29 total minutes, two points, four rebounds, three assists, one steal Freitag's departure is the most notable of the three. He joined the program as its top recruit in the class of 2024 with the long-term expectation of filling Chucky Hepburn's shoes at point guard. The Minneapolis, Minnesota, native appeared in just 14 games as a true freshman, mostly in the final minutes of decisive wins. He enters the portal with three years of eligibility remaining, likely looking for a guaranteed role and playing time. Here is more on the impact of Freitag's transfer decision. OUT: Junior guard Camren Hunter 2024-25 Stats: 23 total minutes, three points, five rebounds, one assist Hunter transferred to Wisconsin last offseason after three seasons at Central Arkansas. Unlike fellow transfers John Tonje and Xavier Amos, he was unable to crack the Badgers' regular rotation. He and Freitag played similar roles off the bench in late-game situations. Hunter transferred back to Central Arkansas this week, where he previously averaged a combined 15.5 points, five rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.5 steals per game in two seasons as a major contributor (2021-23). OUT: Junior forward Chris Hodges 2024-25 Stats: 15 total minutes, one point, one steal Hodges entered the portal after four seasons with the Badgers. He was a reserve throughout that time, seeing just 30, 21 and 15 total minutes of playing time as a redshirt freshman, sophomore and junior, respectively. His exit opens a fourth roster spot that Gard and his staff will look to fill with an experienced transfer. Contact/Follow @TheBadgersWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin Badgers news, notes and opinion
USA Today
24-03-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
How to watch Central Arkansas vs. Abilene Christian in women's NIT basketball: Time, TV channel, streaming March 24
How to watch Central Arkansas vs. Abilene Christian in women's NIT basketball: Time, TV channel, streaming March 24 The Central Arkansas Sugar Bears (23-9) aim to continue a three-game home winning run when hosting the Abilene Christian Wildcats (21-12) on March 24, 2025. Last time out, Central Arkansas lost 68-51 to FGCU on Saturday. Abilene Christian enters this matchup on the heels of an 86-59 victory against Northwestern State on Thursday. In the losing effort, Leah Mafua led Central Arkansas with 17 points. Erin Woodson recorded 21 points for Abilene Christian. Central Arkansas vs. Abilene Christian TV channel Location: Farris Center in Conway, Arkansas Farris Center in Conway, Arkansas Date: Monday, March 24, 2025 Monday, March 24, 2025 Time: 7:30 p.m. ET What time is Central Arkansas vs. Abilene Christian basketball today? Central Arkansas and Abilene Christian hit the court at 7:30 p.m. ET. Watch women's college basketball with Fubo Central Arkansas' offense has been worse over its last 10 games, scoring 68.2 points a contest compared to the 69.2 it has averaged this year. While Abilene Christian is posting 71.5 points per game in 2024-25, it has fallen short of that over its previous 10 games, producing 69.4 points per contest. Central Arkansas Sugar Bears basketball schedule Abilene Christian Wildcats basketball schedule Watch women's college basketball with Fubo
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Central Arkansas and Abilene Christian play in NIT matchup
Abilene Christian Wildcats (21-12, 9-8 WAC) at Central Arkansas Sugar Bears (23-9, 17-4 ASUN) Conway, Arkansas; Monday, 7:30 p.m. EDT BOTTOM LINE: Central Arkansas takes on Abilene Christian in the National Invitation Tournament. The Sugar Bears are 17-4 against ASUN opponents and 6-5 in non-conference play. Central Arkansas is eighth in the ASUN with 12.4 assists per game led by Bree Stephens averaging 2.6. The Wildcats are 9-8 in WAC play. Abilene Christian averages 71.5 points while outscoring opponents by 10.0 points per game. Central Arkansas' average of 7.7 made 3-pointers per game this season is just 0.8 more made shots on average than the 6.9 per game Abilene Christian allows. Abilene Christian averages 7.8 made 3-pointers per game this season, 1.0 more made shot on average than the 6.8 per game Central Arkansas allows. TOP PERFORMERS: Elizabeth Abiara is averaging 6.3 points and 7.1 rebounds for the Sugar Bears. Stephens is averaging 1.3 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games. Emma Troxell averages 1.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Wildcats, scoring 11.1 points while shooting 34.0% from beyond the arc. Meredith Mayes is shooting 55.8% and averaging 13.8 points over the past 10 games. LAST 10 GAMES: Sugar Bears: 7-3, averaging 68.2 points, 32.6 rebounds, 10.8 assists, 6.4 steals and 3.3 blocks per game while shooting 44.4% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 65.0 points per game. Wildcats: 7-3, averaging 69.4 points, 30.1 rebounds, 13.0 assists, 9.2 steals and 3.5 blocks per game while shooting 42.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 61.9 points. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
