GOPs 17.2 percent solution

   As of mid-March, the nation’s rate of uninsured had declined to 15.9 percent from 17.1 percent in December.

  We can’t know exactly where the rate stands now, but it’s lower. And, well, the nation’s Republican leaders will not have that.

   They will do everything they can — and credit them for having done everything they could — to get us back to the good old 17.1 percent days.

   Seventeen point one, of course, won’t be good enough. We can trust that the GOP partisans cannot — will not — rest until the nation’s uninsured rate is at least a percent of a percent higher than that.

    Yes, the 17.2 percent solution.

    Hear the call to arms: We must reverse the reversal of the uninsured rate by any means.

    We went to the Supreme Court appeal for that. We succeeded in part by relieving states of having to treat all working poor equally under the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid.

    We shut down the government to stop something that had been the law of the land for four years. Admittedly, the only thing that accomplished was to highlight Sen. Ted Cruz’s penchant for children’s literature, but our cause was just.

   We must not, cannot, have government making it possible that more Americans have health coverage this year than last.

   Granted, we will feign outrage that in the process, some Americans had their policies canceled. (Privately, we will do the Snoopy dance in celebration.) Granted, because of the ACA, all of those people have an option to be covered still.

   We still like the good old 17.1 percent days better. Back then, when one had one’s insurance policy canceled, one’s options were squat. And we liked it.

   That’s why 17.2 percent is our goal, because less is more when it comes to the annoying needs of the uninsured.

   Don’t believe this? Set aside the desert mission to blow up the ACA. Look at the budget proposed in Congress by Rep. Paul Ryan.

   If his proposal were to become law, dramatic cuts would hit Medicaid and subsidies to help Americans buy health insurance — $2.7 billion over 10 years. Presto — fewer insured Americans tomorrow than today. Now, that’s sweet music. Sing it, Sen. Cruz.

   Now, you might think of Medicaid as just a gravy train for the undeserving. Apparently you have not studied the creature you curse. 

  The biggest chunk of dollars Medicaid disburses — nearly two thirds; look it up — isn’t for “welfare moms.” It’s for grannies and granddads in nursing homes.

   It’s tough love, you might say, but the pain someone else’s elders suffer would be worth it to get things back to what they once were, back in the 17.1 percent days.

   Speaking of health care, we’ve heard a lot from ACA’s sworn enemies about how it stole billions from Medicare. (Factcheck.org says there’s a big difference between “stealing” and saving billions of dollars. In fact, it says the savings built into the ACA will prolong the life span of the Medicare trust fund.)

   Well, if the foes of ACA are the protectors of Medicare they pretend to be, then they should be alarmed by the Ryan proposal, also trotted out in the 2012 election, to block-grant Medicare. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities at the time said that the long-term restrictions built into that proposal would cost seniors an average of $6,000 a year in out-of-pocket expenses.

   All of this represents a longing for a return to things as they were, when seniors didn’t depend so heavily on the government. Those were the same halcyon days when a national health insurance program for the working poor was a silly dream.

   Don’t rest, GOP, until we not only are back to the the 17.1 percent sweetness of yesteryear (2013), but a percent of a percent more.

     Longtime Texas newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.

     

      

        

   

    

    

     

      

        

   

    

    

When every sperm is sacred

    Regularly I drive past individuals praying out in front of Planned Parenthood.

    Supplication being a private thing, one can only imagine what appeals they direct skyward, out there in the cold and wind.

    I like to imagine that they are praying that all women, regardless of income, have access to safe and affordable contraception.

   I imagine that is not likely.

   Most likely, they not only oppose the abortion that their signs and placards decry. They also oppose birth control that would avert unwanted pregnancies — and abortions.

   In many cases, this even includes opposition to the condom, with all those sperm laid to waste. Oh, the humanity.

    I admit grudging admiration for this form of studied absolutism, even if it is so far removed from America’s cultural realities as our highways are from hay wagons.

   I am reminded of a 2012 Gallup poll in which 82 percent of Americans said birth control was morally acceptable.

   Check that. That was 82 percent of Catholics saying as much.

   Yes, Catholics.

    This may explain why two key Colorado Republicans have had changes of heart recently on the issue of “personhood.”

     U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner and U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman both have dropped their support for a personhood amendment that abortion foes perennially place before the state’s voters, who each time shoot it down by large margins.

     Gardner is seeking the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Mark Udall. Coffman is in a tight race in a newly redrawn swing district. 

    Both acknowledge that the amendment they once supported in lockfstep with social conservatives is poison for the masses. It would prohibit contraception that might cause a fertilized egg not to implant.

    Once again, points for absolutism to those who want to give zygotes Fourth Amendment rights, but most Americans understand this to be folly. Truth be known, most people who say they oppose abortion would acknowledge they can’t pretend to be so rigid.

   Any candidate who claims to be “pro-life” should have to explain the extent to which he or she would go in getting government into the gestation process. What exceptions would be permissible under a law of his or her design?

    Rape? Incest? Life-threatening medical or psychological circumstances? In each case, which “life” takes precedence?

    Those who say “no exceptions” haven’t practiced obstetrics, and haven’t been raped.

     Speaking of practice, that’s all it is, shadow boxing, when politicians mouth “pro-life” nothings, though they have no personal investment into the matter, or no womb, as it were.

    Considering how broadly the public accepts contraception, it’s amazing that we continue to have discussions like the one before the Supreme Court about Hobby Lobby’s right, as a corporation, to refuse to carry health insurance that covers contraception.

    Birth control aside, this is one more extension of the spurious “corporations as people” spiel used to undermine campaign finance laws.

    Rights are reserved for people. If corporations  have religious rights, the workplace can be their temple. They can require morning and afternoon prayers, restricted diets. To do otherwise would violate their faith. But, of course, Hobby Lobby doesn’t do that. It hires people of all faiths. What gives it the prerogative to cherry pick and reject components of basic, broadly accepted health coverage?

      Some Republicans have made fools of themselves for playing the Limbaugh Bully Game about contraception coverage. The birth-control pill isn’t a license for, as Mike Huckabee sneers, women who “can’t control their libido.” The pill is basic health maintenance, providing for a smooth regulation of a menstrual cycle, for one thing.  

      As the change-of-heart Colorado Republicans are acknowledging, this is a losing game for political absolutists. Hooray for the Obama administration for not shrinking from this court challenge.

     The issue in the Hobby Lobby case is the “personhood” of employees and the 21st Century definition of health care.

      Longtime Texas newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.

Algebra II vs. Citizenship I

   What would you say if someone told you that your state’s emphasis on algebra was undermining math instruction?

   What would you say if that someone was a math instructor?

   What would you say if someone said algebra as emphasized — overemphasized — was undermining democracy?

   Well, I’m saying the latter.

   First, algebra vs. math. It sounds like a contradiction, but to hear a Texas math instructor explain it, as one did to me, it makes all the sense in the world.

    It’s something the teacher wishes policy makers — so fixated on one-size-fits-all, conveyor-style education “fixes,” would hear.

   He told me that school districts’ forced march to get students to state-set benchmarks, advanced algebra being at the end of lawmakers’ rainbow, has caused teachers to rush students through basic math. The result, he said: Far many students have only a cursory grasp of key concepts.

   The teacher said that if policy makers really wanted students to master math, they would ease up on the throttle so that teachers could better reinforce the fundamentals.

    This pace, this race, is the curse of “criterion-based” testing and top-down, rigid, “raise the bar” policies.

    When everyone has to learn the same things at the same pace, some children won’t. Period. Of course, teachers, not unmanageable requirements, will be blamed for this.

   Now, what was that about algebra vs. democracy? It’s a real duel, and democracy has been routed.

   How is it that policy makers can be so concerned about advanced math and show so little concern for students’ grasp of how things work in their nation, their state, their community?

     Recently the College Board announced that the new SAT will include questions about civics. That prospect should give educrats the quakes. By and large, our children are so bereft of an understanding of civics as to make Lady Liberty hop a boat for France.

    Let’s face it. Our leaders are just as clueless about this national problem as is your average high school grad. Maybe they fear having a new generation that actually pays attention to what they do.

   Why, sure. Where’s the relevance in all that in comparison to 5(-3x-2) - (y-3) = -4(4x + 5)+13?

   We don’t want children wasting their time finding Crimea — or Oklahoma — on a map.

   It’s not a direct equation that less emphasis on math means more emphasis on citizenship. But we could only hope.

  Fortunately, policy makers are realizing that not all students are college-bound, and not all college-bound students need advanced algebra.

   Texas has dumped a requirement that all students take four years of math, meaning more choices for those who choose a degree or career path that doesn’t require it. Florida has done the same thing. It no longer requires Algebra II for all.

   California will no longer require all eighth-graders to take algebra. Now, don’t panic, all you regimentation freaks. After all, presumably, those students still have four grades and puberty left for that. And students so inclined can still put pedal to the metal, algebra-wise.

   Somewhere one of America’s greatest college instructors is smiling over this.

   Ralph Lynn, a legendary Baylor University history professor who wrote pithy commentaries in the local newspaper right up to his dying breath, was openly derisive about policy makers’ fixation on algebra. He knew how few college graduates really needed advanced algebra. At the same time, every adult needs to know what a mill levy is and why a sales tax is regressive.

   No, I don’t assume that less emphasis on higher math will elevate the nation’s citizenship IQ. However, I will invite readers to suggest anything, absolutely anything, that would.

    Longtime Texas newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.