AP
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration is beginning to transfer more than a million adult Medicaid enrollees into a single, new benefits program. On Monday, the Department of Human Services will move more than 100,000 people into the program, called Health Choices. It also will stop admitting new enrollees into plans created by Wolf’s predecessor, Tom Corbett. It expects to finish transferring everybody else by Sept. 30. The moves are designed to undo Corbett’s efforts to create three different benefits programs. He had sought those changes in conjunction with Pennsylvania’s embrace of the Medicaid expansion under the 2010 federal health care law. But advocates for the poor complained that Corbett’s changes were administratively burdensome and confusing to enrollees while preventing some from getting coverage for dialysis, mental health counseling or addiction treatment.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The Legislature’s fiscal analysis arm says Gov. Tom Wolf’s package of tax changes he’s seeking may not necessarily spare lower-income households, as Wolf’s administration contends. The Independent Fiscal Office analysis released this week projects that Wolf’s tax package would raise a net of nearly $5 billion in its first full fiscal year in effect. Taxes on income, sales, tobacco, banks and natural gas production would rise, while school property taxes and corporate taxes would drop. The Independent Fiscal Office says residents at $100,000 in annual income or above will pay most of the net increase, but that people in lower levels would pay more, too. Counting sales, income and property taxes, Wolf’s administration says the average home-owning family of four that makes under $100,000 will see a tax cut.