In Your View — 11/01/09 » Editorials » Daily Independent (Ashland, KY)

Editorials

Discussion

October 30, 2009

In Your View — 11/01/09

Anonymous The Daily Independent Fri Oct 30, 2009, 01:43 PM EDT

Help is needed to understand reform

I’m just an old hillbilly so maybe some of you sharp educated people out there can help me.

Now as I understand it we are going to pass a health care plan that was written by a committee. The head of that committee says he doesn't understand it and hasn’t read it.

Congress is going to pass it but they don’t understand it and haven’t read it either but will exempt themselves from the plan. It will be signed by a president who hasn’t read it either and even smokes cigarettes.

Overseeing paying for the bill will be a treasury chief that didn’t pay his taxes and overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and will be financed by a country that is broke.

As I said I don't understand.

Gaylord Cooper, South Shore

GOP opposes a public option

In an October 21 USA Today op-ed, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said that every Republican in Congress supports health care reform. Every Republican in Congress may support reform, but it is only on their terms. Republicans are opposed to the public option, which a majority of Americans want. We want and deserve the same government-run health care that all the members of Congress have.

Republican legislators especially cater to the health care insurance companies in order to get large campaign contributions. Politicians of both parties are not fit to serve if they consider their re-election to be more important than the well-being of all citizens. Health care is one area of American life that should not be for profit.

The secret to reforming health care resides in taking the money out of politics and greed out of capitalism. Then, maybe both Democrats and Republicans can begin to work together for the common good in health care and in other important areas.

Paul L. Whiteley Sr., Louisville

Private services can reduce abuse

It’s distressing to read Kentucky ranks highest in child deaths caused by abuse and neglect. Even more distressing is knowing that the data on which the story was based came from 2007, before major cuts in the child-protection budget were enacted. Unfortunately, more cuts loom, which hardly bodes well for the future.

The glimmer of hope in all this is that private providers such as Sunrise Children’s Services are working in partnership with the state Department for Community Based Services to move toward a more preventive service model.

Providing in-home services are not only more effective than fixing a broken home later, it also costs thousands of dollars less per family. In-home services can cost as little as one-fifth the cost of out-of-home care.

Many times a family in turmoil needs a relatively minor assist to stop the cycle of abuse or neglect: Parenting classes, job-skills upgrade, or budgeting lessons. Other times more intensive services are required, such as substance-abuse treatment or other therapies. The point is to keep children in their homes when possible, with supervision and personalized treatment plans that enable families to function more safely and effectively.

In contrast, serving families retroactively often means long legal processes, institutional care, and the prosecution and incarceration of offending adults.

Sunrise has been keeping Kentucky’s children safe since 1869. Today, our faith-based organization annually serves more than 2,000 children across the state through a full continuum of care, including residential treatment, crisis stabilization, therapeutic foster homes, adoption services and family counseling centers.

We stand ready to help Kentucky take a bold new approach to child abuse and neglect to ensure that we can move Kentucky away from national disgrace and into God’s grace.

Bill Smithwick, President & CEO, Sunrise Children’s Services, Mount Washington

Text Only

Editorials

Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.

February 10, 2012
Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.

February 9, 2012
'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.

February 7, 2012
Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.

February 7, 2012
Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.

February 6, 2012
Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.

February 6, 2012
Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.

February 4, 2012
Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.

February 3, 2012
Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.

February 2, 2012
Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.

February 1, 2012
More Editorials Headlines

Editorials

Search Results

Discussion

In Your View — 11/01/09

Site Map

Contact Us