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

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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

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Editorials

Earmarks again?
Immediately, following the midterm elections of 2010 which saw Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives and capture seats in the U.S. Senate, Republican leaders in Congress announced they had heard the voice of the voters and vowed to cease using “earmarks,” the name given to appropriations slipped into bills by influential legislators without a vote.

May 26, 2012
Best in the nation
It may surprise many readers that Newsweek’s “best high school in America” is located right here in Kentucky and is open to selected students throughout the state, but then the Carol Martin Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green is hardly your typical high school. In fact, it would be impossible for even the best public high schools to emulate the amazing success of students at the Gatton Academy.

May 25, 2012
After the vote
We offer today a few reflections on the messages voters sent in Tuesday’s primary election in Kentucky.

May 24, 2012
A mild winter
As we approach the Memorial Day weekend, long hailed as the unofficial start of the summer vacation season, we pause to reflect upon the winter that wasn’t.

May 23, 2012
Devices banned
Emergency breathing devices that tests have proven unreliable are being phased out under a directive issued by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. However, MSHA has given mine operators more than 18 months to remove all the air packs from underground mines.

May 22, 2012
A free weekend
In an effort to promote increased recreational use of the two lakes in the Daniel Boone National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service will offer free fishing and boating during the first weekend in June.

May 22, 2012
Ho-hum election
Psst! Want to know a secret? There’s a primary election Tuesday. And it’s right here in Kentucky! However, there has been so little interest in this election, that Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, the state’s top election official, is predicting that only betwixen 10 and 12 percent of the state’s eligible voters will take the time to go to the polls tomorrow.

May 21, 2012
A real rush job
By giving first reading approval to two identical ordinances creating the Northeast Regional Jail Authority, elected leaders in Boyd and Carter counties are reviving a 30-year-old political issue — only this time with different results.

May 20, 2012
KCTC leads way
The ability of Kentucky to compete with other states and the rest of the world for the good jobs of tomorrow keeps improving by degrees.

May 19, 2012
Slow decline?
Louisville’s Churchill Downs is seeing its shortest spring meets since 1975, and some owners, trainers and breeders fear they could get even shorter. That is unless the Kentucky General Assembly has a change of heart and gives the home of the Kentucky Derby the option of increasing its nonracing revenue by offering new forms of gambling.

May 18, 2012
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