State Highlights: Virginia Faces $460 Million In Unforeseen Medicaid Expenses; $1 Billion CalPERS Lawsuit Goes To Court In June In Calif.

The Associated Press: Virginia Facing High Unexpected Medicaid Costs
Virginia is facing a huge bill for unexpected Medicaid costs that hamper proposed new spending on things like school improvements or tax breaks for the poor. State officials said Friday that Virginia has about $460 million in unforeseen Medicaid costs. The new costs, first reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, are unrelated to Virginia’s recent decision to expand Medicaid eligibility to low-income adults under the Affordable Care Act. (Suderman, 11/2)

Sacramento Bee: CalPERS Long Term Care Lawsuit Scheduled For June 2019
A class-action lawsuit that could cost CalPERS $1 billion is headed to trial in June, and many of the 122,000 retirees who bought an insurance plan at the center of the case are receiving small checks from an agreement that settled a portion of the claims. ...Michael Bidart, the attorney representing CalPERS members who allege the pension fund carried out a contract-breaking rate hike on their long-term health care plans five years ago, anticipates that the trial will go forward as scheduled. (Ashton, 11/5)

Sacramento Bee: Nevada Likely To Appeal Huge Verdict Over Busing Psychiatric Patients Out Of State, Official Says
The state of Nevada will likely appeal a jury verdict that it must pay $250,000 to scores of people it put on Greyhound buses after discharging them from a mental health hospital, officials said Friday.A Sacramento Bee investigation in 2013 found that Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital purchased bus tickets for roughly 1,500 patients after discharge over a five-year period, sending them to California and other states across the country. (Reese and Hubert, 11/2)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia Can't Force Landlords To Address Mold Problems
Tenants who find mold in their homes have no safety net in metro Atlanta and elsewhere in Georgia, placing them and their children at risk of chronic breathing problems, infections and lost school days. Local and state government agencies lack the legal authority and funding to test the air in Gray’s apartment, much less make it healthy to breathe, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found. (Mariano, 11/2)

The Associated Press: Home Care Aide Claims Union Won't Let Her Cancel Membership
A California mother who cares for her disabled daughter sued a union representing home health care workers, claiming the group won’t let her cancel her membership. Delores Polk said in the lawsuit filed Thursday in Sacramento federal court that a telemarketer with the Service Employees International Union pressured her to join and failed to properly inform her that she could decline membership. The suit is the latest in a string of cases nationwide filed since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that government workers can’t be forced to contribute to labor unions that represent them in collective bargaining. (Melley, 11/2)

Kansas City Star: Kansas Nursing Home Anti-Psychotic Rate Better Than Missouri
After years as one of the worst states when it comes to using dangerous medications to sedate people, Kansas showed marked improvement in the latest federal data released last month by the National Partnership to Improve Dementia Care in Nursing Homes. In the first quarter of 2018, the percentage of long-term nursing home residents on anti-psychotics in Kansas was 17.4 percent — the state’s lowest rate since the partnership started tracking it in 2011 and down from a high of 26 percent. (Marso, 11/5)

Kansas City Star: Escaped Kansas Sexual Predator Arrested After 12-Day Search
Kansas authorities said that they have recaptured a sexual predator 12 days after he absconded from a mental health facility in Miami County. The Miami County Sheriff’s Office said that Jason Michael Hale had fled on Oct. 21 and was taken back into custody early Friday. (Rizzo, 11/2)

Detroit Free Press: Medicaid Fraud Charges Filed In Centria Autism Investigation
A former employee of Centria Healthcare, believed to be the nation's largest provider of autism therapy, has been charged with two felony counts of Medicaid Fraud False Claims, after investigators say she forged billing records for care she didn't provide. The charges are punishable by up to four years in prison. The criminal charges brought by the Michigan Attorney General's Office are the first sanctions to result from the ongoing probe of the Novi-based company, although the accused is being prosecuted as an individual, not as an employee of the company where she used to work. (Wisely, 11/2)

ProPublica: Illinois Child Welfare Agency Agrees To Stop Sending Children To Psychiatric Hospital Where Children Reported Abuse But Balks At Full Investigation
The state’s child welfare agency Friday agreed to stop sending children in its care to a Chicago psychiatric hospital where children have reported being sexually abused and assaulted, but said it would not seek the full independent investigation advocates had requested, setting up a possible court fight. The decision by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services came one day after state lawmakers and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois demanded the agency allow an outside expert to conduct a comprehensive investigation of Aurora Chicago Lakeshore Hospital on the city’s North Side. (Eldeib, 11/2)