Medicaid Expands
The Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Housing Coalition (MHC) applauds Gov. Beshear’s decision to expand Medicaid coverage in Kentucky, which will provide health insurance to people who work in jobs that do not offer health insurance and who cannot afford insurance because their pay is below poverty. MHC knows affordable health care impacts housing stability.
MHC is a nonprofit that conducts research, policy analysis and advocacy on issues impacting the availability of fair and affordable housing in the Metro Louisville area. MHC’s 2008 report, “Housing Insecurity: Neighborhood Conversation on Health-Care Costs,” described the results of two focus groups MHC conducted in low-income neighborhoods on the issue of health-care costs and housing stability.
MHC found health-care costs compete with housing and other basic needs in the budget of a low-wage or fixed-income family. A prior MHC report, “Louisville’s Foreclosure Crisis,” found families in foreclosure identified health-care costs as a significant factor in their foreclosures.
A single health-care crisis can substantially alter an uninsured family’s housing stability. The expansion of Medicaid is an affordable housing issue as well as a health-care access issue. This expansion will help workers, and working families, maintain stable housing.
Adam Hall, MHC Board President
Money is Speech
You’ve probably heard that Sen. Mitch McConnell made a deal to save the filibuster a few weeks ago with some help from Sen. John McCain. They promised not to filibuster some of President Obama’s appointments in exchange for Harry Reid’s promise that he’d stop threatening to repeal the Senate’s filibuster rules. It’s another band-aid fix. So once more, Congress is pleasing itself instead of pleasing its constituents. Public opinion polls show that voters want to repeal the filibuster. They’re fed up with gridlock.
Throughout our history, this maneuver has been used to defend bad ideas our nation eventually rejected. John C. Calhoun filibustered for slavery, nullification, secession and the power of the slave plantation industry. He’s known today as the father of the filibuster. A century later, segregationists filibustered to prevent civil-rights legislation. McConnell apparently thinks it’s a handy tool for ratcheting the power of money. In his own words, “Money is speech.” I think everyone gets that.
Tom Louderback, Highlands
Same Old, Same Old
I have read extensively about the founding fathers. They were wealthy landowners and businessmen. They wrote of God many times in their papers and journals. How else do politicians incite a crowd and persuade them to lean to their point of view? They invoke God. How many times have we heard militant Islamists shout, “Allah akbar”?
The founding fathers were consummate politicians. They came from the original 13 colonies with vested self-interests, different agendas and promises made to supporters. In other words, they were no better than today’s politicians on Capitol Hill.
Writing of God and speaking of God or praying to God does not make one godly. How can these “righteous” men hijack and subvert the ancient Hebrew texts and the New Testament to justify slavery? Face it, the spirit of the Constitution was written by white supremacist slavers.
Furthermore, the Declaration of Independence has nothing to do with the Bible. It was hijacked from the colony of Virginia and then amended to its present form in Philadelphia.
Praying for supernatural intercession to vanquish one’s enemies in warfare is pure folly. Germany is generally thought to be a Christian nation, yet the Nazis were not able to stop the godless Soviets from reaching and ransacking Berlin. Did the Germans not pray hard enough?
It’s complex to say my god is better than yours. Weapons, manpower, tactics, citizen willpower and politics are more important. God doesn’t come down from the heavens to smite your enemies. Nor does God intercede to stop a car from hitting a child.
Rich Givan, Crescent Hill
