Kasich on Medicaid and Common Core

Art credit: theadventuresofcallum.blogspot.com

This letter, published yesterday in the Wheeling News-Register, is by our fellow patriot Bob Connors with the We the People Ohio Valley :

Kasich Mishandled Medicaid

December 16, 2014

The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register

Mike Myer's recent opinion "Political Litmus Tests Unwise" makes sense except where conscience and freedom meet. Should we not hold politicians accountable for issues like health care choice or kid's education?

Describing Gov. Kasich's unilateral implementation of Medicaid expansion as a single issue may be naive, Ohioans voted for, and overwhelmingly passed, a health care amendment to protect themselves from the unpopular Obamacare in its entirety and Kasich disrespected that vote. Kasich then defied Ohio state representatives who said "no" to Medicaid expansion as they cut it from the budget. Kasich also ignored the throng of phone calls and email begging him not to support Obamacare via Medicaid expansion.

Is it crazy to question Kasich's contempt for voters and his debt legacy which will saddle Ohioans with huge permanent budget busting surges in spending for decades? No. It is fiscally irresponsible to commit billions of future tax dollars to hospital and health insurance executives as with Medicaid expansion. Ditto for committing big stealthy spending growth for Common Core Standards, a national one size fits all education disaster.

Many people oppose putting more of Ohio's poor into this broken Medicaid program because several studies show Medicaid patients have worse health outcomes than people without insurance. Kasich could have reformed Medicaid when he was first elected, thereby providing people with better outcomes at less cost, but he did not. Kasich uses the Bible to justify his actions but the Bible speaks of people helping people, not about politicians getting into heaven by creating generational debt.

Bob Connors

Bridgeport

# # #