ObamaCare the Solution to Gun Violence?

Letters to the Editor

Columbus Dispatch, 

Last week there were two more mass shootings in this country. 

When I ask Senator Portman or Representative Stivers why they don’t support universal background checks, they say it would infringe on 2^nd Amendment Rights and that the real problem is the need for more mental-health services. 

When I ask what 2^nd Amendment Right of theirs was affected when they bought their guns, the room gets very quiet. 

In Sunday’s Business section, the Dispatch has been publishing a series – “The Color of Money” by Michelle Singletary. 

Over the past 5 weeks she has written about a different aspect of the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare. 

In last Sunday’s article, titled “Mental-health coverage expanding,” she says that, while many current insurance plans don’t include mental-health coverage, “under the ACA, insurance plans will have to cover a core set of services called ‘essential benefits.’  Included on the list of 10 benefits are mental-health services.” 

She also mentions that “the ACA will provide one of the largest expansions of mental-health coverage in a generation.” 

There you have it, boys. 

If you’re serious about gun violence in this country, rather than repeatedly voting to repeal ObamaCare, you should be supporting it. 

Dave Girves

Portman’s proposals on gun violence?

Letters to the Editor

Columbus Dispatch,

Scott Seibert’s letter about gun violence prevention in Sunday’s Dispatch, August 25^th, caught my attention, especially the part where he says that “proposals made by Sen. Portman will break the cycle of violence.”

I’ve been trying to find out just what Sen. Portman’s position is on the issue of gun violence since the Sandy Hook tragedy over 8 months ago.

I stopped by his Washington office in late January and again in mid-July.  I’ve been to his Columbus office three times since that December 14^th day.

I have never been able to see him; and his aides don’t seem to know his position either.  All they have been able to tell me is that he voted against the assault weapons ban when he was a Representative.

In mid-May, after he voted against requiring background checks, I sent him an email and called both offices asking if his vote was influenced by the $1,314,279 that the Mayors Against Illegal Guns say he received from the gun lobby.  And I asked if that accusation was true.  I’m still waiting for a reply.

Now that Congress is home for a 5-week recess I am told that no town halls are on his schedule and he is unavailable to meet with his constituents.

What is Mr. Seibert’s secret access code and what, specifically, are those proposals made by Sen. Portman?

Dave Girves

Understanding ObamaCare

Letters to the Editor

Columbus Dispatch,

Thank you for the honest, timely, and informative article about the coming opportunity to apply for quality, affordable health insurance in Ohio.

Michelle Singletary’s primer on page D7 of Sunday’s Dispatch, “Uninsured can prepare for ObamaCare,” gave the basics without the partisan blinders of Liberal or Conservative ideologies.

If this easy to understand “first of a series of columns explaining provisions of the law” is any indication, I can’t wait to see the next one she writes.

Dave Girves

2014 health insurance rates – the truth, (short version)

Letters to the Editor

Columbus Dispatch,

The Dispatch, like Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, neglected to mention that most people won’t be paying the full premium price for their health insurance next year; an omission that radically changes the point you were trying to make – headlined “Young men face higher premiums,” (Tuesday, August 13^th).

The Department of Health and Human Services says 90% of those currently uninsured will be eligible for a subsidy.

Those subsidies will vary inversely with income.  Only those earning more than 4 times the poverty level will pay the full price, and even then they will be buying insurance at the group rate rather than at the individual rate they pay today.

One of your examples was for a couple in their early 60’s.

You said the current price for insurance was between $5,300 and $17,665 and that next year they would pay $13,220.  But that is true only if they earn over $62,500.  If their earnings were any less than that the maximum they could pay would be $5,890, between 11% more than the current lowest premium and 67% less than the current highest premium.  If the couple earned $16,000, (just over the Medicaid cut-off) the annual premium would be only $320 – 94% less than this year’s lowest premium.

Your other two scenarios showed similar results.  The 29-year-old male, at the lower income level, would pay $230 per year – 66% less than the current lowest rate.  The family of 5, at the lower income level, would pay $560 per year – 88% less than the current lowest rate.

But the most important thing you neglected to mention was that the range of rates you quoted for the current year are not available to anyone, in any of those scenarios, who has a pre-existing condition.  What is the worth of even a $10 annual premium if the insurance company refuses to sell you a policy because of a pre-existing condition?  That won’t be allowed under ObamaCare.

Dave Girves

Climate Change must be real

Letters to the Editor

Columbus Dispatch, 

If the front page of today’s Dispatch doesn’t convince everyone that Climate Change is real, I don’t know what will. 

In your story titled “Deductibles added for wind, hale damage” you explain why home insurance companies are beginning to charge Ohio homeowners more for damage caused by wind and hail.  But there are no increased charges for fire or theft claims. 

Insurers have noticed a rapidly growing number of claims over the past 5 years, almost triple the previous 5 years, for weather related damage. 

Their actuaries make their living betting on the future and they know this is a trend, not an anomaly. 

Politicians can deny climate change all they want, but when serious business people are convinced, and 99% of the scientific community agree, isn’t it time we do something about it?

I got my answer from the Dispatch . . . I think

To all those of you who wondered if the Dispatch would respond to my offer to walk into the lion’s den:

[My father was a smart man.  Decades ago he told me:  “Never fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”  He was talking about the Dispatch and I was in the Restaurant business.  Nevertheless I have copied the Dispatch on this email.]

I got my answer from the Dispatch at 9:27 am Friday morning – 23 hours after I sent it at 10:38 am on the 4^th of July.  They probably had the 4^th off, so answered as soon as they got it.

Well, again I’m just assuming here that they don’t want me to come in and talk to them.  Mr. Sheller doesn’t really come out and say that.  He just reaffirms his misleading statistic from opinion polls while suggesting I’ve been duped.

From: Glenn Sheller [mailto:gsheller@dispatch.com]
Sent: Friday, July 05, 2013 9:27 AM
To: Dave Girves; Ben Marrison
Subject: RE: Your Editorial – Monday 7/1/13

Dear Mr. Girves: 

I’m sure that most of the people participating in Enroll America are true believers who think the Affordable Care Act is a good thing. That doesn’t change the fact that the law has remained unpopular since it was passed, with opposition currently at 52% according to opinion surveys. It’s obvious that the administration hopes the Enroll America effort will reverse the negative public perception of the law. 

The fact that the administration has political motives doesn’t mean that volunteers such as you are not sincere in your belief in the law. Both things can be true at the same time. 

All the best, 

Glenn Sheller

Editorial page editor

The Columbus Dispatch

614-461-5072

 

I don’t know.  Is that condescending or patronizing?  What’s the right word?  I guess I’m just not smart enough to see through the ObamaCare propaganda.

First, to say 52% oppose the law while only 44% support it ignores the fact that 16% oppose it because it doesn’t go far enough.  The poll could more correctly be read to say that 60% approve of the law or want it to go further while only 36% oppose it.

Second, if opinion polls ruled:

• Women wouldn’t be allowed to vote

• Blacks would still be segregated, without many rights, and counted as 3/5’s of a person

• We would have universal background checks for gun purchases

• Etc.

And third, to paraphrase Mr. Sheller’s response:

I’m sure the members of the Dispatch’s editorial board are true believers who think the Affordable Care Act is a bad thing.  That doesn’t change the fact that, when including those who think it didn’t go far enough, the law has remained overwhelmingly popular since it was passed, with support currently at 60% and opposition at a mere 36% according to opinion surveys.  Those same surveys show that, when asked about the individual parts of the ACA, support is almost universal.  While it might appear obvious that the administration hopes the Enroll America effort will correct whatever negative public perception of the law is still out there being generated by right-wing ideologues unconstrained by the facts, the truth is that Enroll America is going out of its way not to talk about the ACA.  Their actual mission is simply to help inform the uninsured, Republicans and Democrats alike, about the coming opportunity to avoid bankruptcy with affordable, quality health care.

The fact that the Dispatch has political motives doesn’t mean that their conservative readers are not sincere in their belief that the law has very serious flaws.  Both things can be true at the same time.

Oops, there I go ranting again.  Sorry.

Dave

P.S.  A few minutes ago, Kathleen Gmeiner of UHCAN, offered to walk in that den with me.

 

My Response to the Dispatch Lead Editorial 7/1/13

I just sent this to the Editor, the Editorial Page Editor, and a reporter at the Dispatch.  the editorial is printed below.

Dave

Mr. Marrison, Mr. Sheller, & Ms. Candisky: 

I considered sending a letter to the editor responding to your Monday editorial accusing the Obama administration of launching a ‘propaganda’ campaign supporting Enroll America’s effort to educate the uninsured about the coming opportunity to get quality, affordable health insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions. 

But I knew that to answer each of your misstatements would end up being perceived as the rambling rant of an old man. 

Instead I am offering to walk into the lion’s den.  I am requesting a half hour of your time to give you some perspective, to see why someone my age would be willing to volunteer to knock on doors to help let people know that they will soon be able to get insurance and not be forced into financial ruin if they get hit by a car or develop cancer. I want you to know what is actually happening, as opposed to what you read in the conservative Human Events magazine. 

Why would I do this?  I have the best health insurance I have ever had – Medicare.  Everyone I know has health insurance.  There’s nothing in this for me.  This isn’t a partisan thing.  I’m sure as many Republicans as Democrats have pre-existing conditions. 

Talk to me.  Bring your reporters in the room to grill me.  Give me the third degree.  I’m not the expert you are at this.   I will crack.  You will get information.  I have no experience with interrogation techniques.  My life experience is the restaurant business.  I owned the Jai Lai. 

I’m retired so I’m available anytime.  Interested? 

Dave Girves

EDITORIAL

Giving them the hard sell

Administration works to persuade the young to buy health insurance 

Wasn’t the Affordable Care Act supposed to be so necessary and sought-after that it would sell itself?

The Obama administration is taking no chances: It is embarking on a multimillion-dollar marketing push, particularly directed at younger people.

Federal officials hope to involve the NFL and NBA in its propaganda campaign, and states are enlisting helpers to canvass — labor unions, community-organizing groups and other traditional liberal supporters — which also involves awarding them millions of dollars in grants.

At the federal level, the education campaign is being spearheaded by Enroll America, a nonprofit that comingles public and private money, some of the latter from companies that will be directly affected by the law. Health and Human Services chief Kathleen Sebelius has come under fire for soliciting support for the group’s mission from companies such as tax preparer H&R Block and health-care-products maker Johnson & Johnson.

At the state level, insurance exchanges are giving out big grants to Democratic allies. The Los Angeles Unified School District will get nearly $1 million to “train” teens to persuade family members to buy insurance. The school district’s grant award also stated that the district will use taxpayer-paid employees to promote the health-care law “through phone calls to students’ homes, in-class presentations and meetings with employees,” according to Human Events magazine.

In an op-ed piece titled “Using ObamaCare to Create a Permanent Democratic Majority,” former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, a conservative health-policy scholar and early opponent of the health-care law, outlined some of the ways the California state exchange, Covered California, will dole out its outreach money: Recipients include the Service Employees International Union, which will get $2 million to make phone calls and go door-to-door; the AFL-CIO in Los Angeles got $1 million for such efforts.

In addition to this outreach, enrollment “assisters” at community organizations, unions and health clinics will be paid $58 for each enrollee, and also will aid people in signing up for welfare and food stamps. As required by the Motor Voter Act signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, enrollees in state exchanges also will be asked if they want to register to vote.

These groups are going to have a tough job persuading the public of the virtues of the law.

A new Gallup poll released last week found that 52 percent of Americans disapprove of the health-care overhaul versus 44 percent who approve. A large majority of Republicans and nearly half of independents said the law will make their own family’s health-care situation and health care in the U.S. worse overall in the long run. Amazingly, well over half of uninsured people said the law either would have little difference or would make health care worse in their families and in the country.

With public opinion downbeat and some of the worst news about climbing costs and premium rates just coming out, backers are now turning to a program of shaming and hectoring people — especially the young, who will be stuck with the largest increases in individual premiums, with little to gain — into buying insurance. And many of the groups doing the hectoring just happen to be political allies of the administration.

The Continuing War on Women

Letters to the Editor

Columbus Dispatch,

First, we need to get one thing straight; no one is in favor of abortion.

The message from the rally at the Statehouse on June 27^th was that politicians have no business making medical, or moral, decisions.  Most have neither the training nor the demonstrated ability to understand either.

The budget sent to the Governor clearly favors the wealthy at the expense of the poor and women.

Money and Politics

Letters to the Editor

Columbus Dispatch,

Defending his vote against universal background checks for gun purchases, Senator Rob Portman is quoted in today’s Dispatch, (6/19, page A15), saying “We want to do things that are actually going to help.”

The obvious question is: “Help who?”

According to the organization ‘Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ Senator Portman received $1,314,279 in campaign donations from the gun manufacturers.  Certainly his vote helped them.

When I called his offices in Columbus and in D.C. to ask if the Mayors’ accusation was accurate, I was given a non-answer.

In the six months since the tragedy in Newtown, Congress has done nothing while “more people have died at the hand of a gun than we have lost in Afghanistan and Iraq” as V.P. Biden said.

Perhaps, if the rest of us all chipped in, he might do something that would actually help us.

Ray Guns and Phasers

Some days I get a little silly.  Today was one of those days.

I just called Senator Portman’s office and asked, with all the gun control talk going around, if the Senator had stated his position yet on Ray guns, like the ones in the movie Star Wars, or Phasers, like the ones we saw on the TV show Star Trek.

There was a long pause while the staffer who answered the phone tried to develop a serious answer.  Obviously this was the first time he had heard that question.

Finally he said that since those weapons don’t yet exist the Senator had not issued a position statement about them.  “But,” he said that Portman “is opposed to a ban on assault weapons because he feels that would infringe on our 2^nd Amendment rights.”

I agreed that it wouldn’t make sense to issue a position statement about some possible futuristic weapon and then pointed out that the state of the art gun technology of 1791, when the 2^nd Amendment was written, was a single-shot muzzle-loaded musket.

Those guys had no clue what weapons would be available 225 years into the future.

Then I asked the staffer to urge the Senator to carefully read the first 4 words of the 27 words in the 2^nd Amendment:  “A well regulated militia . . .”

He said he would pass my message along.  I bet he won’t.