Parenting column spot-on
E.J.R. David's commentary (ADN, Jan. 24) should be required reading for all Alaska high school seniors, their parents and their teachers. Thank you, Dr. David, for your perspective and for reminding me again to be ever so thoughtful about how I communicate with my kids and the "advice" I provide them.
— David Wigglesworth
Anchorage
Make up for oil job losses
with expansion of Medicaid
To compensate for our impending oil-patch job losses, I recommend that we move posthaste to implement a Medicaid expansion, which by one estimate alone, will create 4,000 replacement jobs. The expansion would result in additional federal funding between $2.1 billion and $3.7 billion. For every dollar in funding from the state of Alaska, an additional $12 to $15 in new federal money would be generated over the initial seven years of the Medicaid expansion. This largesse will pay for care that otherwise would have been provided at the state's expense.
Additional state spending may be reduced, as a result of covered individuals moving into Medicaid, including substance abuse counseling, mental health hospitals, subsidization of the cost of care for individuals in the high-risk pool, hospital inpatient services to prisoners, and public health services for the previously uninsured (homeless).
Another program that could be transitioned entirely under Medicaid expansion is the Chronic and Acute Medical Assistance program, a state-only program administered through the DHSS Division of Health Care Services that provides financial assistance to Alaskans who need medical care but do not qualify for the state Medicaid program (homeless). The program would serve our most vulnerable, our children, grandchildren, working poor, our neighbors. I would cheerfully pay a state income tax, a state sales tax or both to pay for our share of providing this important expansion.
I have been a resident of Alaska since 1940 and have always considered myself politically conservative all the while. Healthy Alaskans transcend partisan politics.
— Karl Schroeder
Anchorage
Raid in Chicken overblown
So, our newly elected Sen. Dan Sullivan is proposing an amendment to prohibit EPA law enforcement agents from carrying guns after a "raid" in Chicken, Alaska? Except that it wasn't a raid, but rather a routine investigation into potential water permit violations by a group of placer gold miners in a remote area of the state. The long gun, which was broken down and carried in a backpack by a BLM (not EPA) official, is commonly used for bear protection and the miners, as are most Alaskans in rural areas, were also armed.
The investigation was described as "cordial and informative," the officers were easily identified by their clothing, no doors were kicked in and no guns were drawn on either side. To me, this sounds a bit like Chicken Little claiming the sky is falling in Chicken, Alaska.
— Barbara Bennett
Anchorage
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