By Dr. Terry Wallace | West Virginia Watchdog
Would you knowingly allow anyone to inject your child with a dose of a known poison? Would you knowingly poison your own child?
Don’t answer too fast, because that is exactly what’s happening every day across America.
Cigarette smoking kills, wounds and damages children just as certainly as any unbalanced [...]

By Amy Purpura | West Virginia Watchdog
With rising costs of health care, an aging baby boomer generation, and new policy directives under the Affordable Care Act, states have started testing Medicaid reforms that will lessen costs and improve the health of beneficiaries.
In 2007, West Virginia began implementing its own experimental Medicaid redesign known as Mountain Health [...]

By Amy Purpura | West Virginia Watchdog
On November 2, 2010, voters of Hancock County approved a ballot measure giving the Board of Education authority to issue bonds for improving and renovating their public schools. This bond levy raised $37 million and received $19 million in grants from the West Virginia School Building Authority (SBA) after the [...]

By Amy Purpura | West Virginia Watchdog
During the 2010 election, Weirton voters narrowly approved a bond levy of $37 million for construction of the new Weirton Elementary School. The approval also entailed that the levy would get matching funding of $19 million from the West Virginia School Building Authority.
On April 19, 2012, at a meeting with [...]

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional budget analysts are now estimating that nearly 6 million Americans — most of them in the middle class — will have to pay a tax penalty for not getting health insurance once President Barack Obama’s health care law is fully in place.
That’s 2 million more than a [...]

By Amy Purpura | West Virginia Watchdog
On August 1, Weirton City Council passed a resolution seeking answers from the Hancock County Board of Education about a proposed elementary school clinic. However, state officials also say the required Certificate of Need has not been requested in connection with the clinic.
The resolution asks the Hancock County Board of [...]

By Dr. Terry Wallace | West Virginia Watchdog
Reports of deep cuts in most state budgets are all too common these days and are passed down to each level of government, including counties and school boards.  One of the primary culprits is the blank check that is Medicaid, the growth of which is crowding out other [...]

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signs SB469, providing a funding mechanism for West Virginia’s $5 billion OPEB debt. (Photo/Steven Allen Adams)
By Steven Allen Adams | West Virginia Watchdog
CHARLESTON — With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed a bill making West Virginia the first state to deal with its multi-billion dollar retiree health [...]

By Steven Allen Adams | West Virginia Watchdog
CHARLESTON — Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin‘s substance abuse bill passed one committee today on the West Virginia Senate side, but still has two more committees to go through.
The Senate Health and Human Resources Committee passed SB437, Tomblin’s proposal that would create a regulatory framework in place to monitor [...]

By Steven Allen Adams | West Virginia Watchdog
CHARLESTON — If senators agree with changes to the legislation, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin can add finding funding for the state’s multi-billion dollar retiree health care debt to his list of successes since officially becoming Governor in November.
The West Virginia House of Delegates passed SB469, Gov. Tomblin’s proposal [...]