State
- With a Senate vote late Tuesday, the Legislature passed the last outstanding spending bill, completing the state budget 125 days late.
- In a great victory for the advocacy community, lawmakers also voted to count the state's inmates as residents of the communities where they live, instead of where they are incarcerated, for redistricting purposes. Other states have recently passed similar rules.
- In a positive turn for New York and other states, Congress moved closer to passing $26 billion in Medicaid and education aid, but New York State Budget Director Bob Megna said that layoffs were still likely.
National
- Recognizing that drug and alcohol addiction and mental illness often occur simultaneously, a hospital in Springfield, Ill., has begun a program to treat both, called “Mental Illness Substance Abuse” or MISA.
- In a presentation on health care reform implementation, Arkansas' surgeon general, Dr. Joe Thompson, praised the new law, calling it "a huge opportunity if we do it right."
- Health care reform, projected to save Medicare about $8 billion by the end of next year, will add more than a decade of solvency to the program's trust fund, the Obama administration said in a report issued this week.
- As expected, President Obama signed a law narrowing cocaine sentencing disparities, which Congress passed last week, to much praise from advocates.
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