What We’re Reading: Monday, September 8th
Welcome to What We’re Reading, a weekly rundown of the articles that caught our eye related to investing in our community or the things that make Athens great.
Digital Tablet PC With News On Desk (XXXL)ABH reports that a driverless cars project at the University of Michigan is receiving $1 million over three years to support expanded use of driverless cars. The Michigan Mobility Transformation Facility has set up a road course to simulate urban and suburban driving in order to test the vehicles viability for public use.
AJC reports this weekend on the new Georgia law requiring the University of Georgia to end its Affordable Care Act Navigator program. The consumer assistance program ran during the 2013-2014 open enrollment season and helped Georgians understand their options on HealthCare.gov. UGA provided Navigators in many rural parts of the state where they already had the university’s extension service. Other groups will have to make up the difference in UGA’s absence during the 2014-2015 open enrollment season. Federal Navigator grant recipients will likely be named this month.
Georgia Health News reports that Medicaid providers are slated to see an end to two years of pay increases received under the Affordable Care Act, potentially harming access to care for Medicaid patients. The ACA increased reimbursement rates for Medicaid providers to equal those for Medicare providers for 2013-2014, although there were some delays in receipt of those payment increases. Six states, including Mississippi and Alabama, have announced their intentions to have the state continue to fund the increases when the federal funding boost ends.
Stateline reports on a pilot program used in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Hawaii to track how students move through their state education systems and on to the workforce, potentially in other states. Until the pilot program, states that tried to track the progress of former students ran into a dead end if that student moved to another state. Similarly, the new state of residence tends to lack data on residents who did not attend school there. Researchers at the Data Quality Campaign hope the findings can inform education policy in other states.
Football is back: Part 2. Both the Dawgs and the Falcons gave fans big Week 1 victories and set expectations high for the rest of the fall. Dawgs travel to Columbia this weekend to attempt a South Carolina sweep and best America’s favorite visor-thrower.
Got anything else we should be reading? Let us know!