Medicaid expansion is the proper path
Regardless of how one feels about the politics of health care reform, there are reasons to feel optimistic about the changes taking place as a result of the law. More will have access to coverage through the establishment of health insurance marketplaces, and many will be able to take advantage of tax credits to afford this new coverage. Indiana’s unfinished business now is to take advantage of federal funds to provide care for more low-income, working Hoosiers through Medicaid.
A recent report from the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Center for Health Policy finds that expanding Indiana’s Medicaid program would generate up to $3.4 billion in new economic activity and support more than 30,000 new jobs. It will provide more than 406,000 Hoosiers with access to potentially life-saving preventive care and treatment. If Indiana chooses not to take advantage of the billions of federal dollars available to us, that money will go to provide health insurance coverage in other states that do expand.
The recent decision by Florida Gov. Rick Scott to support Medicaid expansion – the seventh Republican governor to do so – underscores that this is an issue that transcends political affiliation and ideology. We urge Gov. Mike Pence and members of the Indiana General Assembly to recognize that expanding Medicaid is good for all of us.
PAUL CHASE Deputy director Covering Kids and Families of Indiana
GOP obstructionism our biggest threat
What is the bigger threat to America, al-Qaida or the Republican-tea party? It’s my opinion it’s the Republican-tea party.
Since President Obama took office in 2009, how many fights have the Republicans created over the debt ceiling, fiscal cliff and now the sequester? They even managed to get our credit rating lowered through their made-up fights. Remember, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, stated his job was to make Obama a one-term president. Since 2009, McConnell has managed more than 300 filibusters to stop bills the president and Democrats have tried to get through, many of them dealing with job creation.
How many times have the Republicans made an issue over the debt ceiling? Under President George W. Bush, the debt ceiling was raised at least seven times without one word from the Republican Party.
Looking at the national debt, under President Ronald Reagan the debt went up close to $3 trillion, and under George W. Bush it went up close to $6 trillion. But under Obama, who inherited a country in recession, we suddenly have a spending problem.
House Republicans refuse to pass a bill submitted by the president to put more than 1 million people back to work redoing our infrastructure. The Republicans refuse to do anything with our tax code that gives corporations major tax breaks along with the rich, including rewarding them for sending our jobs overseas. However, there more than happy to cut and/or eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. With the sequester facing America, the Republican Party, led by Speaker John Boehner, went home for 10 days.
Don’t tell me Republicans care about America, especially the middle class and the poor. If they did, they wouldn’t have just taken a 10-day vacation with the sequester and many other issues facing America. I strongly believe as long as the Republicans control the House and continue to filibuster bills in the Senate, America is headed for disaster over the next four years so they can make Obama look ineffective in running our country. Wake up America, made sure you research the issues and don’t just listen to Fox.
BOB DUNDERMAN Fort Wayne
Sequester furthers socialist agenda
Even The Journal Gazette is joining President Obama in his far-left tactics of scaring the American people with distortions and lies. The Feb. 21 front page article boldly exclaims: “Spending cuts would idle 170 at Air Guard/22-day furlough rests on Congress.”
These cuts – scheduled to be effective on Friday – were created by Obama, and Congress went along on a bipartisan basis. The sequester would be 1) only a 2.4 percent cut in the current $3.7 trillion annual budget, and 2) a very small start on reducing the runaway federal spending that has destroyed our economy and placed an unsustainable burden on this and all future generations. Can you name any other president who has used these deplorable means to change our way of life?
This president is hell-bent on turning our free nation into another socialist state – like the European countries that are now in bankruptcy. You won’t find proof of this reality in liberal newspapers or network TV news programs. They do not present the truth, showing the violent and deadly riots occurring over there right now.
When I was a young man, the movie theaters offered “PatheNews.” In that weekly feature, it often showed street demonstrations and fighting by the citizens in many foreign countries. My thought always was: “That will never happen in our country.” I was wrong.
JOHN PAUL Warren
