Federal Poverty Level

Pennsylvania plans to make the amount of food stamps that people receive contingent on the assets they possess - an unexpected move that bucks national trends and places the commonwealth among a minority of states. Specifically, the Department of Public Welfare said that as of May 1, people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings and other assets would no longer be eligible for food stamps. For people over 60, the limit would be $3,250. Houses and retirement benefits would be exempt from being counted as assets.

Public leaders and local utilities yesterday urged eligible residents to register for a federally funded program that provides winter energy assistance. The program, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (Liheap), last year distributed cash grants averaging $158 to 75,000 Philadelphia households. The money is paid directly to utilities or oil and coal dealers. Another 32,209 Philadelphia households received one-time crisis grants last year. Applications will be taken starting Monday through Jan. 20. The grants will be distributed until the funds are exhausted, said David M. Boonin, a Philadelphia Gas Commission official leading a campaign to get eligible residents to apply.

The Casey administration for the third consecutive year faces the possibility that it might have to scale back home-heating grants for thousands of needy Pennsylvanians this winter. Administration officials expect the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program will provide the state between $15 million and $24 million less this fiscal year than the $97 million received last year. Lt. Gov. Mark S. Singel, who is serving as acting governor, said yesterday that officials seemed divided over how to handle the reduction.

On a day when President Bush was in the area for a political fund-raising luncheon, five Democratic members of Congress came together to ask him not to veto a revised children's health insurance bill. They gathered in the playground of the Parent-Infant Center in West Philadelphia to underline their support for the reauthorization and expansion of the program known as SCHIP. "It's been working, and we want to extend it to another four million children, which would be 10 million total," said U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.)

TRENTON - The federal government has agreed to pay for half of New Jersey's Medicaid program for low-income, childless adults through 2013, saving the state more than $300 million. The 50 percent matching grant, announced Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is effective immediately and runs through the end of 2013. Medicaid is funded with state and federal dollars. Under health-care reform, the program will expand to allow for coverage of more adults starting in 2014 and will be fully funded by the federal government for the first few years.

Nearly three years after government, business and health-care officials began to explore ways of providing medical services to one million Pennsylvanians without health insurance, the state still has no plan. Indeed, the only proposals even submitted to the legislature were sent back to the officials who drafted them as inadequate. And that was nearly a year ago. Meanwhile, the meetings and debates continued in Harrisburg. Last week, one legislator, Donald W. Dorr (R., York)

After years in the making, an agreement was concluded yesterday on legislation to provide state-subsidized health insurance for children from lower-income families not covered by their insurance. However, because of concerns about potentially skyrocketing costs in future years, the measure was limited to children 12 and younger and the program capped at a maximum $20 million yearly cost. "It's scaled down," said Rep. Allen G. Kukovich (D., Westmoreland), who was the legislation's chief sponsor and first introduced a health-care bill in 1990.

Some are the working poor trying to get by without any help. Others are the elderly, handicapped or non-English speakers, people who are isolated and on the edge. What they all have in common is their eligibility for federal dollars to help pay onerous monthly heating bills or even other utility bills, but they don't know about the program and don't apply. Now, thanks to a deadline extension from Dec. 20 to Jan. 2, thousands of city households that haven't taken advantage of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program have two more weeks to get that help.

Drastic cuts proposed by President Reagan in a federal energy-assistance program would cause hundreds of thousands of poor people to go without heat next winter, a consumer organization said yesterday. Officials of Buyers Up, a fuel cooperative established by Ralph Nader in Philadelphia last year, said reductions in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program would be devastating to Pennsylvania. Carol de Los Reyes, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which is in charge of the program, said Reagan has proposed cutting the federal program from $1.8 billion to $1.2 billion.

Joining Pennsylvania and a handful of other states seeking to make sure all children have health insurance, New Jersey is about to offer low-cost coverage to youngsters from middle-class families. Starting Jan. 1, the program will cover uninsured children whose parents earn too much to qualify for other government health-care programs. The plan is to offer coverage to families no matter what their income, provided their youngsters have gone without coverage for at least six months.

Pennsylvania plans to make the amount of food stamps that people receive contingent on the assets they possess - an unexpected move that bucks national trends and places the commonwealth among a minority of states. Specifically, the Department of Public Welfare said that as of May 1, people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings and other assets would no longer be eligible for food stamps. For people over 60, the limit would be $3,250. Houses and retirement benefits would be exempt from being counted as assets.

TRENTON - The federal government has agreed to pay for half of New Jersey's Medicaid program for low-income, childless adults through 2013, saving the state more than $300 million. The 50 percent matching grant, announced Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is effective immediately and runs through the end of 2013. Medicaid is funded with state and federal dollars. Under health-care reform, the program will expand to allow for coverage of more adults starting in 2014 and will be fully funded by the federal government for the first few years.

Nearly 500,0000 people with low incomes would pay up to $10 a month for prescription drugs under Gov. Corzine's budget proposal. An additional 7,500 who receive free drugs for HIV and AIDS would pay between $6 and $30 per prescription as part of the budget-cutting measures detailed in documents released yesterday. The two changes would cost the prescription beneficiaries - and save the state - $6 million to help balance Corzine's $30 billion budget proposal. Ending coverage of medicine for erectile dysfunction under Medicaid and the state senior-citizens prescription program would save an additional $3.3 million.

Joining Pennsylvania and a handful of other states seeking to make sure all children have health insurance, New Jersey is about to offer low-cost coverage to youngsters from middle-class families. Starting Jan. 1, the program will cover uninsured children whose parents earn too much to qualify for other government health-care programs. The plan is to offer coverage to families no matter what their income, provided their youngsters have gone without coverage for at least six months.

On a day when President Bush was in the area for a political fund-raising luncheon, five Democratic members of Congress came together to ask him not to veto a revised children's health insurance bill. They gathered in the playground of the Parent-Infant Center in West Philadelphia to underline their support for the reauthorization and expansion of the program known as SCHIP. "It's been working, and we want to extend it to another four million children, which would be 10 million total," said U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.)

It sounds fairly simple. If Pennsylvania could create a single form to sign up needy children for the state's complex health-insurance programs, many more of the state's 185,000 uninsured children might be covered. At least 12 states have set up one-stop shopping for children's insurance programs. But Pennsylvania still forces parents to plow through two systems of red tape: the state-run Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Medicaid, the more comprehensive state/federal plan for the poorest kids.

Some are the working poor trying to get by without any help. Others are the elderly, handicapped or non-English speakers, people who are isolated and on the edge. What they all have in common is their eligibility for federal dollars to help pay onerous monthly heating bills or even other utility bills, but they don't know about the program and don't apply. Now, thanks to a deadline extension from Dec. 20 to Jan. 2, thousands of city households that haven't taken advantage of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program have two more weeks to get that help.

Public leaders and local utilities yesterday urged eligible residents to register for a federally funded program that provides winter energy assistance. The program, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (Liheap), last year distributed cash grants averaging $158 to 75,000 Philadelphia households. The money is paid directly to utilities or oil and coal dealers. Another 32,209 Philadelphia households received one-time crisis grants last year. Applications will be taken starting Monday through Jan. 20. The grants will be distributed until the funds are exhausted, said David M. Boonin, a Philadelphia Gas Commission official leading a campaign to get eligible residents to apply.

The Casey administration for the third consecutive year faces the possibility that it might have to scale back home-heating grants for thousands of needy Pennsylvanians this winter. Administration officials expect the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program will provide the state between $15 million and $24 million less this fiscal year than the $97 million received last year. Lt. Gov. Mark S. Singel, who is serving as acting governor, said yesterday that officials seemed divided over how to handle the reduction.

After years in the making, an agreement was concluded yesterday on legislation to provide state-subsidized health insurance for children from lower-income families not covered by their insurance. However, because of concerns about potentially skyrocketing costs in future years, the measure was limited to children 12 and younger and the program capped at a maximum $20 million yearly cost. "It's scaled down," said Rep. Allen G. Kukovich (D., Westmoreland), who was the legislation's chief sponsor and first introduced a health-care bill in 1990.