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Alexandria Recorder

March 10, 2011

Role models

| LETTERS | Editor Michelle Shaw | mshaw@nky.com | 578-1053

PROVIDED

In schools, the older students are always told they are role models for the younger students. The fifth grade students at St. Joseph, Cold Spring, are not only role models for the younger students; they are personal “Buddies” with the children in the first grade. The students are paired off in the beginning of the school year and meet with their partners several times through the year. Shown: First-grade student, Brooke Burkhardt, and her fifth-grade buddy, Alayna Ross, take turns reading some of their favorite books.

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Your Community Recorder newspaper serving the communities of southern Campbell County

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Diabetes: Are you at risk?

If you have been anywhere near any form of media lately I am sure that your have noticed a lot of discussion about the impact that obesity and lack of activity is having on the health of African Americans nationwide. One of the primary results of this has been an increase in the number of diagnosed cases of diabetes, a condition in which the body has trouble using a sugar called glucose for energy and, if left untreated, can result in major health problems. In our community alone there are over 200,000 people who are affected by the disease. There are two types of diabetes: Type 1, in which your body stops making the insulin that is required by your cells to create glucose to burn for energy; and Type 2, in which the body does not produce enough insulin to compensate for less glucose

Maurice Huey Community Press guest columnist

than normal moving into cells. But how do you know if you are at risk for diabetes? There are a number of potential warning signs that our bodies give us including: • Do you feel tired all the time? • Do you urinate often? • Do you feel thirsty or hungry

all the time? • Are you losing weight for no reason? • Do cuts and bruises heal slowly? • Do you have numbness or tingling in your fingers or toes? If you are experiencing any of these symptoms it is recommend-

ed that you consult with your physician. While people of all backgrounds can get diabetes, people of African American, Hispanic, and Native American descent are most often affected. Another way that you can find out if you are at risk of diabetes is by attending the American Diabetes Alert Day at Fountain Square on Tuesday, March 22. Along with our partners from Kroger Pharmacy and other local health organizations, we will be providing health screening and administering the Diabetes Risk Test to find out if you are at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes. So take control of your health today and join us on March 22. Maurice Huey is the Executive Director of the American Diabetes Association of Greater Cincinnati. He can be reached at 513-759-9330 or by e-mail at mhuey@diabetes.org.

The Medicaid malady: What’s up, Doc?

PROVIDED

Fifth-grade students pair up with their first-grade friends at the annual Christmas Bingo at St. Joseph, Cold Spring. Pictured here are fifth-grade students Brady Hicks and Adam Verst, with their first-grade buddy,Brayden Simon, in the middle.

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Morgan Schulkens and her buddy, Millie Dorgan are always happy when they get together at St. Joseph, Cold Spring.

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Fifth-grade student, Patrick Seibert and his first-grade buddy, James Ampfer, share a good book at St. Joseph, Cold Spring.

Some highly publicized proposals made during the current legislative session offer stark reminders that state lawmakers remain very good at treating symptoms but do a remarkably poor job of curing patients. One patient, “Kentucky Medicaid,” already on life support, will get no surgery in the form of serious cost savings. Its condition is sure to worsen when the full effects of federal demands in the new health care bill for states to increase their Medicaid eligibility ceilings come to bear. Currently, more than 833,000 Kentucky adults enroll in Medicaid, a program designed to help the working poor and disabled. Federal mandates will require Kentucky to raise its Medicaid-eligibility ceiling from the current 62 percent to 133 percent of the federal poverty level — $18,310 for a family of three in 2010. This will add 300,000 Kentuckians to the program by 2014. Those life-support system lights that already flash yellow will turn red. Gov. Steve Beshear’s infirm budget proposal last year promised to find more than $126 million in Medicaid savings during this fiscal year. It ends June 30, but so far, the governor claims to only have found $87 million in savings. Truth be told, he cannot substantiate one cent of savings. Yet, the good doctor traipses into the Kentucky General Assembly operating room during this year’s non-budget legislative session and asks lawmakers to extract $167 million from next year’s Medicaid budget and transplant it into this year’s gap. If not, the warning is clear: Medicaid flatlines. House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Rick Rand, D-Bedford, scrubs into the mismanaged operation and says without the

transplant, the commonwealth would be $600 million in the hole, forcing Kentucky to “cut reimbursement rates to all of our providers, our our Jim Waters hospitals, physicians, denCommunity tists and on and Recorder on and on.” guest So, rather than columnist focus on making the Medicaid program and its services more healthy through efficiency, Rand tries to deflect the failure of the Governor’s Office to follow through on promised cuts. Instead, Doc Beshear offers to throw the neediest Kentuckians under the political bus — the Gubernatorial Election Express. Rather than making needed cuts — and disproportionately affecting the Democratic governor’s voting base in November — Beshear wants to “harvest” next year’s money and stick it in a sickly patient. That way, the state can take advantage of an offer of onetime federal stimulus money and the fact that the federal rate of reimbursement will fall from 80 percent this year to 70 percent next year. That operating technique simply addresses the symptom: a budget gap. It doesn’t cure the Medicaid malady. Meanwhile, other states have tried a different surgery called “savings.” • Rhode Island leaders worked out a deal with the feds that capped Washington’s Medicaid contribution to the state at $12 billion through 2013. In return, Rhode Island would not be required to spend more than 23 percent of its state budget on Medicaid and could take cost-

CH@TROOM Last week’s question

Are you looking forward to the Cincinnati Reds season more this year than last year? Why? “It would be so great for Cincinnati to have a winning team again! While last season was fabulous for the Reds and the community. It would be amazing to see the Reds go to the World Series in 2011. With a NFL team

that is so lousy, it’s fun to have a baseball team that wins! It’s good for improving the community spirit and good economically for Cincinnati! Let’s have another winning season. Go, Reds!” E.E.C. “I am very much looking for the Cincinnati Reds season. I think the Reds are and asset to the city and we need to do what we can to

support them. Furthermore, I think we have the talent to have a winning team this year.” E.S. “No, as a teacher in the state of Ohio I simply can not sit by and watch millions of dollars being thrown to the wind on sports players.” K.S.

“Am I looking forward to the Cincinnati Reds season more this year than last? Isn’t it strange how age and the world situation can change your perspective? I can remember in the 70’s when we hung out with neighbors outside on the sidewalk, listening to Johnny Bench, Joe Nuxhall, Davie Concepion, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and all the rest of them, never missing a pitch. These days, my interest has really waned.

A publication of

Your Community Recorder newspaper serving the communities of southern Campbell County

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Alexandria Recorder Editor . . . . . .Michelle Shaw mshaw@nky.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .578-1053

About letters & columns

We welcome your comments on editorials, columns, stories or other topics important to you in The Community Recorder. Include your name, address and phone number(s) so we may verify your letter. Letters of 200 or fewer words and columns of 500 or fewer words have the best chance of being published. All submissions may be edited for length, accuracy and clarity. Deadline: Noon Monday E-mail: mshaw@community press.com Fax: 283-7285. U.S. mail: See box below Letters, columns and articles submitted to The Community Recorder may be published or distributed in print, electronic or other forms. cutting steps needed to remain within that budget. So the state created a new system offering Medicaid users incentives for healthy behavior, coordinating their care, introducing competition in its services-purchasing process and combating fraud and abuse. • A Florida bill would privatize its Medicaid program. While $24 billion in federal money would be at risk, Sen. Joe Negron, R-Palm City, said that Florida’s first obligation is to its citizens, not to satisfy the federal government’s desire to enact a one-size-fits-all directive. “We cannot allow Washington, D.C., to commandeer our budget,” Negron said. “My goal is the benefits under Medicaid will not be worse than what any private citizen has, but not better, either.” Did somebody say “goal?” I believe there is a real doctor in the house. Jim Waters is vice president of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free-market think tank.

Next question Do you agree with Supreme Court’s decision allowing protesters at military funerals? Why or why not? Send your answer to mshaw@nky.com with Chatroom in the subject line. Maybe all of the scary stuff going on in Egypt and the mid-East, as well as our struggling economy and the strife involving public employees labor unions keeps me from enjoying things like baseball.” Bill B.

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