Archive for January, 2005

Good news! Florida has extra money to spend this year! Now we can afford to produce a meaningful Pre-K program uh provide adequate medicaid coverage to seniors and the poor uh lower tuition costs for needy students uh cut taxes for wealthy investors and businesses. With economic growth driving billions of added dollars into the [...]

In case you missed it, here’s why Wal-Mart sucks. Now, Tarpon Springs can look forward to a future of low paying jobs, no local merchants, and a slow erosion of everything that sets the community apart from everywhere else. Tampabay: No smooth docking for Wal-Mart In this Greek-settled city, the best coffee in town is [...]

Closing to cost bay area 1,900 jobs The Tampa Bay area’s coveted financial services industry suffered another damaging blow Wednesday when JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced that it will close its credit card call center by the end of the year and eliminate 1,900 jobs. The news, long rumored, was denied by company officials for [...]

The GOP’s annual “Democracy?!? We don’t need no stinkin’ democracy!” anti-citizen initiative push is getting underway. After falling short in 2004, legislators say they’re determined this year to make it harder for citizens to amend the Florida Constitution. Six amendments approved by voters in November are the latest among dozens proposed and adopted in recent [...]

Medicaid is essentially health insurance for low income families, children, seniors, and people with disabilities. Like health care costs in general, like private insurance, costs have been going up lately, but a big part of Medicaid cost increases is due to an upsurge in enrollment (pdf), and, in fact, Medicaid costs have risen slower than [...]

Record Number Of Applications Floods KidCare Florida ranks third among the states in numbers of uninsured children, estimated at 600,000, Ray said. The Legislature last year ended a 70,000-child waiting list for KidCare and provided open-enrollment periods. Lawmakers also tightened requirements, but changes led to additional paperwork and confusion for parents trying to renew their [...]

Ban on letting gays adopt stands Silently sidestepping a controversial question, the U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal by four Florida men who unsuccessfully challenged the state’s ban on adoptions by gays or lesbians, the only blanket law of its kind left in the nation. The refusal came after a three-judge panel [...]