The Connecticut Mirror : Walmart, Dunkin' Donuts Top Employers Of HUSKY Recipients Walmart, Dunkin' Donuts, Stop & Shop, McDonald's, and the First Student transportation company employ the most workers whose families rely on the state's HUSKY health insurance program for low-income children and their parents, according to a report by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Research. The report identified the 25 companies with the most employees who receive coverage for themselves or their children through the HUSKY Medicaid program, which covers families that earn up to 185 percent of the poverty level, or $34,280 for a family of three. A person working fulltime at minimum wage, $8.25 an hour, would earn $17,160 a year (Levin Becker, 8/5).

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Kids Health Coverage At Risk, Advocates WorryNow on Capsules, KHN's news blog, Jenny Gold reports: "Lawmakers largely spared Medicaid and Medicare in the debt deal signed by President Barack Obama Tuesday. But activists say health programs aren't yet out of the woods, and low-income children may be at risk" (Gold, 8/5).

Arizona Republic: Arizona Respite Care Trimmed 15% Arizona's poor, sick and disabled will soon have limits on paid hospital stays and reduced respite hours for their caregivers ??” part of a $500 million cut to the state's Medicaid program. Heart-rending appeals from parents and others who care for the developmentally disabled led the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System to scale back its original proposal, which would have cut respite care in half for more than 50,000 children and adults who qualify for long-term care. Instead, the hours will be cut to 600, or 25 days, from the current 720 hours, or 30 days, annually (Reinhart, 8/5).

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.