Letters to the Editor: Medicaid cuts, and the Epstein fallout

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.

Republican attacks on healthcare expensive, dangerous

I recently read an opinion piece in USA Today that claims Medicaid has been disconnected from helping its recipients find work. It also claims that tens of millions of able-bodied adults are trapped in government dependency and not flourishing because they are not working.

The piece further purports that the cuts President Trump and Republicans made to Medicaid are not gutting Medicaid, but preserving the core of the safety net for the truly vulnerable and that he and his fellow Republicans are helping millions of able-bodied adults leave welfare and find work. He makes much the same claims for the SNAP program. This article completely ignores the facts.

The following statistics are from the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent source for health policy research:

• 64% who receive Medicaid are already working either full- or part-time.
• 12% are not working due to caregiving responsibilities.
• 10% are not working due to illness or disability.
• 7% are attending school to improve their ability to attain work.
• 8% are retired or unable to find work.

*Note: Total does not sum to 100%, due to rounding.

So, where are the tens of millions of able-bodied adults not working? The 64% who are working are in jobs that don’t offer healthcare to their employees, which is why they qualify for help. In addition, these people don’t earn enough to qualify for a premium subsidy under the Affordable Care Act, making the ACA policies unaffordable.

The cuts made to Medicaid and the changes made to the Affordable Care Act are
going to increase hospital prices as they seek to cover the costs of people showing up to the ER with no health insurance. Hospitals with emergency departments are required to treat patients without insurance with emergencies. Premiums will increase as health insurance companies seek to cover the higher hospital prices. Hospitals that see a larger number of Medicaid patients, particularly inner city and rural hospitals, may well close because they can’t make it financially.

So, how are Republicans going to reduce waste and fraud? They are going to waste
people's time and fraudulently cheat people out of benefits they qualify for by saddling them with onerous paperwork and red tape. Many low-income workers work odd hours, making it difficult to complete the requirements.

Both Arkansas and Georgia have tried or currently have work requirements for
Medicaid. Both had serious issues with their websites not functioning correctly and people unable to submit their paperwork, resulting in the denial of benefits. The websites are closed at night and clients have difficulty getting an actual person to resolve issues. Georgia has spent more than $91 million in state and federal funds launching, building and operating its eligibility reporting system that still has major glitches two years on. In the meantime, qualified recipients go without the health insurance they need and deserve.

All people have a fundamental right to healthcare, and, as a society, it benefits us to have people who are healthy in terms of people’s ability to work, the reduction of spreading illness, and curbing mental health crises. Republican attacks on the U.S. health system are shortsighted, expensive and dangerous for us all.

Beverley Rannow
Holland 

Birds of a feather: Epstein and Trump 

President Donald Trump recently picked a fight with Columbia University. Blaming the university for being antisemitic, Trump fined Columbia University $200 million. Columbia University, cowed by this bully, agreed to pay up. It’s the nature of bullies to keep on picking on those who have yielded. 

Now, Trump has picked a fight with Harvard University and is fining Harvard University for $500 million, and Harvard is working out a deal to placate Trump. Which university will be next to be cowed by this bully?

I have wondered how Trump’s friend Jeffrey Epstein became so wealthy by providing financial advice and entertainment to wealthy clients. Could it be by extortion? Blackmail? Money-laundering? Is there some information in the Epstein files that can shed light on this? Have these birds of a feather been sharing ways to use mobster protection racket tactics to destroy our universities and our democracy?

Judy Parr
Holland

Jeffrey Epstein's Michigan connection

The media have only scratched the surface of the crimes against young girls committed by Jeffrey Epstein and so many others. I recommend the 2020 book "The Spider" by Barry Levine if you want more information than what social media and TV are giving us.

Here is one example:

In 1998, Epstein gave a large donation to the Interlochen Center for the Arts in northern Michigan. In return t,he camp built the Jeffrey Epstein Scholarship Lodge and gave Epstein two weeks a year to stay in this lodge. He and his then-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, would take advantage of this in the summer months and sit on its porch looking for victims. One young 13-year-old camper from Florida was victimized by Epstein and Maxwell for several years, and who knows how many others fell prey to these monsters.  

The lodge is now called The Green Lake Lodge and can be rented.

The book is filled with the names of those who were friends with Epstein and Maxwell, friends who might be revealed to be predators in the Epstein Files. After you read this book, you can see why both Biden and Trump do not want these files to see the light of day. I am sure many of our business and political and show business elites are very nervous.

By the way, anything Maxwell says can not be trusted. She is a known liar and sexually preyed upon young girls, too. If Trump wants to get the truth, he or his lawyers at the Department of Justice must talk to the victims, not just the predator. The camp cut ties with Epstein in 2007 after his child sex conviction.

Henry Idema
Grand Haven 

Shop with your feet when it comes to your morals, values

We know that the state of Israel has been committing crimes against humanity in Gaza for almost two years. They have been involved in genocide for a longer time.

I hung out my Palestinian flag today in solidarity with those oppressed peoples and then went for coffee at a shop that has another business next door that had been flying a pro-Zionist flag.

It occurred to me that I was being quite hypocritical, and I have resolved to no longer support any enterprise that is openly supporting the state of Israel. We will now be meeting at a different coffee shop. If we cannot influence businesses that support Zionism in our own backyard, how can we hope to make a difference on the national or global stage?

Don't get me wrong — I'm not antisemitic. I have very dear Jewish friends. The Holocaust was horrific, but it was not carried out by Arabs.

I am against Zionism and any other enterprise that supports the killing of so many innocent women, children, aid workers and journalists. I hope that others who agree with me will vote with their feet and boycott any establishment that supports Zionism's abuses.

Steven Van Doornik
Holland

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