ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 27, 1996 TAG: 9604290024
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
42 million now have no health insurance
WASHINGTON - An unprecedented 42 million Americans now have no medical insurance, ``a foreboding increase'' from 39 million just three years ago when President Clinton launched his unsuccessful crusade for universal health coverage, according to an analysis released Friday by the American College of Physicians.
The study by the nation's largest medical specialists group blamed the increase on the continuing decline in employer-provided coverage and on funding cuts for Medicaid.
A third of the uninsured live in households with annual incomes of more than $30,300 - twice the federal poverty level for a family of four.
The report called the declining coverage a moral and an economic issue and urged the presidential candidates and private industry to address it
- Los Angeles Times
Women chain gangs get official demoted
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama's prison commissioner, who won praise from tough-on-crime politicians everywhere for reviving chain gangs, was fired Friday after announcing plans to put female prisoners in leg irons, too.
``There will be no woman on any chain gang in the state of Alabama today, tomorrow or any time under my watch,'' Gov. Fob James said in announcing the reassignment of Ron Jones.
James quickly shot down the idea of putting shackles on women inmates and sending them out in work crews after reading about it, to his surprise, in the morning newspapers Friday, his spokesman said.
Jones, who revived chain gangs for male prisoners last year, will return to his old job of warden at a prison near Montgomery, James said.
- Associated Press
Youth, 16, jailed for lack of shot records
PORT WASHINGTON, Wis. - Sixteen-year-old Jacob Kallas was arrested Wednesday, handcuffed and jailed overnight because he didn't have the paperwork for his measles, mumps and rubella shots.
Jacob's mother, Janet Kallas, admits she ignored two court orders to provide her son's new school with proof of the immunizations, which he did receive.
But she couldn't believe authorities would throw her child in jail over a missing piece of paper.
``I didn't realize we were in such a police state,'' the mother of five said. ``We're talking about a really good kid who's freaking out because he's in jail. It's my fault. I should be the one who was held.''
- Associated Press
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