By: Sandi Saunders

Sandi Saunders — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 13:49:18 +0000

If there was any hope for the poor and working poor in Virginia to get jobs or better paying jobs in the next decade, I could see refusing to establish these much needed expansions to Medicaid. Such is not and is not going to be the reality and we need to face that. Do you suppose we do not already spend 22-28 million dollars per year on indigent medical care? Or that we will be able to stop? We WILL have the problem to deal with and refusing the federal dollars to help do so is a true no-brainer, but a sure partisan sign.

By: Citizen Charles

Citizen Charles — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:03:15 +0000

Laurence Hammack (good job) presents a balanced reporting of Secretary Hazel’s visit, with the pros and cons of Medicaid expansion a couple pages before the editorialboard’s one-sided and capricious conclusions . Virginians need to know that it is very likely going to cost big bucks ($150-280 million in the next decade) to expand Medicaid, even with federal help. It’s no wonder that hospital administrators are lining up to milk the new Washington cash cow, yet with soaring deficits,that Holstein has a dried teat. Though Virginia ranks low in Medicaid coverage, it remains one of the most business friendly and fiscally sound in the US. Our legislators should be allowed the time for a thoughtful deliberation of extending health care coverage, when HHR is already eating 20% of the Commonwealth’s budget. Virginia has a balanced budget and should keep it, something that “spend now, tax later” Washington should emulate. Take your time legislators! Nobody is dying on the streets and this issue is pivotal to the Commonwealth’s future.

Comments on: No delays for health care expansion

By: Sandi Saunders

By: Citizen Charles