Great work with article
I want to let the Cherokee Scout know that your staff correspondent, Anngee Quinones-
Belian, is first class. Her and her husband, Bill, came to visit our property, and she just completed a great article on us. We never expected to be featured in the newspaper and could not be happier with the article.
Thank you so much for telling others about us. Great work.
Collin and Jennifer Cordell, Bellview
The writers are the owners of Cobb Creek Cabins, which was featured on page 1A in the July 13 edition.
More Medicaid not the answer
A recent op-ed in the Cherokee Scout praised a bill that would expand Medicaid eligibility, in accordance with The Affordable Care Act, to individuals earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level ($30,305 for a family of three in 2021).
The carrot for Medicaid expansion is the federal government pays 90 percent in 2022 and each year thereafter, leaving the states to cover the 10 percent remaining share. By comparison, the federal government pays
50-78 percent of the health-care costs for traditional Medicaid enrollees, depending on the state. Twelve states, including North Carolina, remain in the basic Medicaid program.
Medicaid expansion is a bad idea according to the non-partisan Foundation for Government Accountability organization.
- The most compelling reason is it crowds out care for those who need it most. Medicaid already serves the most at-risk populations. Expanding Medicaid forces traditional Medicaid populations to compete for limited access to care with hundreds of thousands of mostly childless, able-bodied adults at the expense of traditional Medicaid enrollees such as seniors, individuals with disabilities and low-income kids.
- Medicaid has grown and so has its mismanagement. Today, more than one in five dollars spent on Medicaid is improper due to eligibility errors. More than 80 percent of improper payments go to individuals receiving fraudulent benefits.
- Given the budgetary mess in the District of Columbia (D.C.), what will happen to the federal subsidy of 90 percent after 2022? If Congress changes the law, the states will pick up the increased financial burden.
- Funding expansion is accomplished by a shell game of diverting billions of annual funds from Medicare to Medicaid, potentially costing aging seniors reduced health-care services.
- Thirty-eight states and D.C. have expanded their Medicaid programs resulting in massive enrollment and cost overruns. In the states that expanded Medicaid, 50 percent more people are enrolling than the Congressional Budget Office expected before expansion took effect in 2014.
- Overall, expansion significantly adds to Medicaid’s unsustainable spending trajectory, fails to produce outcomes worth the corresponding cost and creates a large federal government bias toward nondisabled, working-age adults.
If policymakers are interested in reducing the uninsured rate, they should expand access to short-term plans and association health plans. Both plans help reduce the number of uninsured.
Expanding Medicaid to people with private insurance and shifting those costs onto taxpayers is not the answer.
Terry Payne, Marble
Is it too late to change course?
Is everyone asleep, where’s the outrage, where’s the demonstrations, where’s the march on the Cherokee County Courthouse?
Two weeks ago, we were told millage rate was going up 3 cents, and it was going to be a burden but had to be done. Now the county screws up for the tune of $48 million, and we have to pay for it with millage up 11 cents.
We’re in the start of a recession – high gas, high home prices, high food costs, everything is high – now high taxes?
The April 20 edition of the Cherokee Scout printed about 2,000 names of property owners with tax liens; can’t imagine 2023. I don’t know what the solution is the to non-stop pile of problems facing average America, but the writing on the wall isn’t looking good – and I’m too old to learn Chinese.
I’d say wake up America, but I feel it’s too late.
Jerry Malinowski, Murphy
Close open containers
What is happening to beautiful, unique Murphy? It seems the town council is determined to make one bad decision after another.
Thanks to council member Keisha Dockery, who proposed this awful idea, and Downtown Development Director Laura LaChance who agrees with it, considerations are being given to open container carrying in a designated section of downtown.
In addition, council members Gail Walker Stansell and Barry McClure, who called it “a great idea,” envision integrating such a social district into the Murphy Art Walk. That strongly suggests people can’t enjoy themselves without being buzzed. How sad.
I guess that might be OK if attendees then slept in their cars right there. Highly unlikely, these buzzed drivers will then get in their vehicles and drive to who knows where, putting themselves and others in danger.
Plus, it sets an extremely bad example for impressionable youngsters, who see adults incapable of having a good time without an alcoholic beverage in their hands.
Do these decision-makers actually think things through? It doesn’t appear so. And just because another small town like Sylva does this (which was used as an example), doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do here.
People unfortunately make foolish choices all the time. Let’s not justify bad suggestions because the almighty dollar speaks louder than common sense. The
final outcome shouldn’t benefit a select group, like business owners, but be based on everyone’s best interests.
Sit in a restaurant, relax and enjoy a good meal. And if you must drink, do it there, rather than parading around town with a cup in your hand that ‘’features the town logo.” That sounds sensible and intelligent to me.
What are all of these people thinking?
Michael Frazier, Murphy