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cutting our future

Cutting Our Future: The Medically Handicapped Children’s Program

The Medically Handicapped Children’s Program (MHCP) is a program that provides specialized medical services for families with children with disabilities or ongoing health care needs.  These services can include case management, specialty medical team evaluations, access to specialty physicians, and payment of treatment services. Buried among the budget modifications in the recent…...

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Cutting Our Future: Medicaid Provider Rates

Medicaid is an important lifeline for kids whose families would otherwise be unable to afford health insurance.  Having health insurance, especially when kids are young, is a critical component of ensuring healthy development.  In 2010, 69% of all Medicaid participants in Nebraska were kids. But having health insurance alone isn’t…...

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Cutting Our Future: Child Care Subsidies

If you spend much time at Voices for Children you will hear us talk a lot about early childhood — those critical years from 0 to 8.  Research has shown that investments in these years pay dividends in the future by helping to create more productive and successful adults.  In…...

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Cutting Our Future: Behavioral Health Services

  In 2008 during our state’s Safe Haven crisis, parents relinquished custody of 36 children to the state of Nebraska. Most of these children were struggling with behavioral health challenges that had left their families feeling helpless. The message was clear: Nebraska’s families and children weren’t getting the help they…...

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Cutting Our Future: Prenatal Care for Low-Income Mothers

As you might remember, during the last legislative session, a bill was passed to restore prenatal care coverage under Medicaid for all low-income mothers regardless of immigration status or other issues of the mother.  A large and diverse coalition of groups came together to support the restoration of this care. …...

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Cutting Our Future: The Need for Juvenile Justice Reinvestment

Nebraska’s juvenile justice system may just be on the verge of a dramatic transformation. It’s not only the reform initiatives that are underway in certain parts of the state that signal change being around the corner. Buried on pages 419-429 of the recent Health and Human Services preliminary budget, is…...

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Cutting Our Future: How Budget Cuts Affect Nebraska’s kids

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” We all know that preventing something bad from happening is better than fixing a problem after it starts.  Time and time again, best practices and research show that intervening early in the lives of vulnerable children can prevent problems from…...

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