www.dailycorinthian.com
Opinion
Reece Terry, publisher
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Corinth, Miss.
Legislators have a busy week ‘Bubba’ Carpenter 1st District Representative
At this point in the session at the end of last week, a majority of bills have either been sent to the governor to be signed into law or are being discussed in conference. Conference on a bill occurs when further discussion is needed by both sides to reach the best solution. A conference consists of three representatives and three senators who work together to finalize
a bill. Once a bill is out of conference, it must go to both the House and Senate for a vote before being sent to the governor. Along with the conferences that were held, the House did meet as a whole to discuss and pass local and private bills, and honor special guests in the chamber. On Tuesday, Terry High School basketball star Nyah Tate was honored for her achievements on and off the court. The Florence High School football team was recognized for an outstanding season and the boys soccer team also made an appearance to be recognized for winning the MHSAA Class 4A State Championship. Madison Station Elementary School firstgrade teacher Allison Ruhl was honored with House Resolution 21 on Wednesday for being the only Mississippian to receive a 2017 Milken Educator Award. That same day, seven students from St. Andrew’s Episcopal School were honored with House Resolution 64 for obtaining a perfect score of 36 on the ACT college admissions test. Students from Davis Magnet International Baccalaureate Elementary School received House Concurrent Resolution 64 for being named best elementary school in Mississippi by SchoolDigger.com. Finally, House Concurrent Resolutions 57, 58 and 60 were presented to Mississippi’s Male Athlete of the Year (Brian Fleming), Female Athlete of the Year (Evelyn Watkins) and Youth Athlete of the Year (Megan Heggie), respectively. On Thursday, House Concurrent Resolution 71 was passed to designate Aug. 26 as Women’s Equality Day in Mississippi. The Raymond High School boys basketball team was presented with House Resolution 72 to commend and congratulate them on winning the MHSAA Class 4A State Championship. House Concurrent Resolution 104 was also presented to recognize the grand opening of the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience. More Mississippians were honored Friday, including Dr. James Anderson, who was recently named a Healthcare Hero for his 50-plus years of health care service to low-income, uninsured minority populations. Similarly, Dr. Freda McKissic Bush was honored for her life of health care service to Mississippians. This year’s Miss Black Mississippi USA Kristy D’Anna Johnson was also recognized for her title. With only one week left in the 2017 legislative session, lawmakers remained in Jackson to work throughout the weekend. The deadline for bills to come out of conference and pass the House and Senate occurs this week. Any bills that are passed will be sent to the governor to be signed into law. Among the special guests that were honored, other visitors to the Capitol this week included Mississippi Farm Bureau, NASA’s Stennis Space Center, Mission Mississippi and the Center for Education Innovation. Lester “Bubba” Carpenter represents House District 1 in the Mississippi House of Representatives, including Tishomingo and parts of Alcorn counties.
Prayer for today Lord God, help me to remember that I may not only be forgiven for my transgression, but with thy help I may be led away from the wrong. May I be content to follow where thou dost lead. Amen.
A verse to share In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.” —Numbers 14:19
Finances of state hospitals on a roller coaster OXFORD — A healthier Mississippi with more medical services, specifically for the underserved, was a hallmark of Gov. Phil Bryant’s stump speech when he was running for office. It continued as a theme in Bryant’s first State of the State address, now more than five years ago: “We must be mindful of the increasing demand for health care, realizing that collaboration of all health care providers is the only way to achieve success. We must heal together, research together and find better ways to serve our citizens together,” he said. Bryant painted a picture of a vibrant medical corridor in the state capital, rivaling those in Houston and Memphis, and talked about medical zones across the rest of the state with tax incentives to add doctors in rural areas. It hasn’t happened. Instead, hospitals large and small are sitting in a bowl of financial spaghetti created by the whims of lawmakers and regulators in Jackson and Washington. Earlier this month, nearly 200 University of Mississippi Medical Center employees went to work and were sent back home — told their jobs had been eliminated. Dr. LouAnn Woodward, who
Charlie Mitchell Columnist
administers the $1.7 billion megacenter, said another 85 vacant positions will not be filled and 439 members of the teaching faculty will take
pay cuts. What got in the way of the governor’s vision? The blame is shared by him, by the Legislature, Congress, this president and the previous president for failing to figure out who would pay for what. Too, private insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry have not been idle bystanders. The medical pie in America is really big — about $21 billion per year in Mississippi alone — and everybody wants bigger and bigger bites. Driving the cuts at UMMC was a total $32.7 million revenue shortfall, $8.2 million of which came via cuts Bryant ordered for almost all state operations because the state’s income has not met projections. The rest traces to the state Division of Medicaid suddenly reducing the reimbursements it will pay hospitals for providing care when no one else pays.
Woodward put on her game face. She reminded the media that UMMC, the state’s only Level One trauma center and the exclusive location for many highly advanced medical services, has had its financial ups and downs. She indicated administrators are determined to stay focused on care, but conceded that this may be the first time a major whack has been sustained so late in the budget year. The shortfall must be covered between now and June 30. Other hospital administrators were not so chipper in their reaction to the Medicaid “reformulation.” The heads of some smaller, rural hospitals said they don’t know if they can stay open. Of all providers in the health care web, it is inpatient acute care hospitals that have the least control over their revenue. That doesn’t mean most haven’t been in on the ridiculous escalations in health care costs. There has been profiteering. But think about their situation: Patient loads can be unpredictable, and while hospitals can negotiate fees with private insurance carriers, they have no direct power to set or control Medicare or Medicaid rates. As stated, Medicaid payments are the root of the cur-
rent dilemma and the irony is that Medicaid is a gimme for this state’s economy. It’s like federal road aid. The state puts in a dollop of dollars and the federal treasury adds a full scoop. No state receives a more advantageous match in this program for the poor and disabled than Mississippi. The state’s health care industry looked upon Bryant with a jaundiced eye back when he stood solidly against an Obamacare incentive for states to expand Medicaid for working people who could not afford private policies. Bryant left billions on the table and lots of people who needed insurance without coverage. But Congress is diddling over whether to do exactly what Bryant feared. Some Trump reforms, if any are enacted, would shift even more of the cost of Medicaid to states. What the people want from government is what Candidate Bryant insisted was possible, beneficial to all. Neat, clean, clear. What people have received is, well, a complete and total mess. Makes one wonder: Is there a Level One trauma center for financial disasters? Charlie Mitchell is a Mississippi journalist. Write to him at cmitchell43@yahoo. com.
The Obama plot to sabotage Trump Devin Nunes just set the cat down among the pigeons. Two days after FBI Director James Comey assured us there was no truth to President Trump’s tweet about being wiretapped by Barack Obama, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Trump may have had more than just a small point. The U.S. intelligence community, says Nunes, during surveillance of legitimate targets, picked up the names of Trump transition officials during surveillance of targets, “unmasked” their identity, and spread their names around, virtually assuring they would be leaked. If true, this has the look and smell of a conspiracy to sabotage the Trump presidency, before it began. Comey readily confirmed there was no evidence to back up the Trump tweet. But when it came to electronic surveillance of Trump and his campaign, Comey, somehow, could not comment on that. Which raises the question: What is the real scandal here? Is it that Russians hacked
Reece Terry
Mark Boehler
publisher rterry@dailycorinthian.com
editor editor@dailycorinthian.com
Willie Walker
Roger Delgado
circulation manager circdirector@dailycorinthian.com
press foreman
the DNC and John Podesta’s emails and handed them off to WikiLeaks? We have Patrick heard that Buchanan since June. Is it that Columnist Trump officials may have colluded with the Russians? But former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and ex-CIA Director Mike Morrell have both said they saw no evidence of this. This March, Sen. Chris Coons walked back his stunning declaration about transcripts showing a Russia-Trump collusion, confessing, “I have no hard evidence of collusion.” But if Clapper and Morrell saw no Russia-Trump collusion, what were they looking at during all those months to make them so conclude? Was it “FBI transcripts,” as Sen. Coons blurted out? If so, who intercepted and transcribed the conversations? If it was intel agencies engaged in surveillance, who authorized that? How
extensive was it? Against whom? Is it still going on? And if today, after eight months, the intel agencies cannot tell us whether or not any member of the Trump team colluded with the Russians, what does that say of their competence? The real scandal, which the media regard as a diversion from the primary target, Trump, is that a Deep State conspiracy to bring down his presidency seems to have been put in place by Obamaites, and perhaps approved by Obama himself. Consider. On Jan. 12, David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote, “According to a senior U.S. government official, (Gen. Michael) Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials ... What did Flynn say?” Now, on Dec. 29, Flynn, national security adviserdesignate, was not only doing his job calling the ambassador, he was a private citizen. Why was he unmasked by U.S. intelligence?
World Wide Web: www.dailycorinthian.com To Sound Off: E-mail: email: news@dailycorinthian.com Circulation 287-6111 Classified Adv. 287-6147
Who is this “senior official” who dropped the dime on him? Flynn was taken down. Did Comey turn his FBI loose to ferret out the felon who had unmasked Flynn and done him in? If not, why not? We need to know who colluded with the Russians, if anyone did. But more critically, we need to unearth the deep state conspiracy to sabotage a presidency. So far, the Russia-connection investigation has proven a dry hole. But an investigation into who in the FBI, CIA or NSA is unmasking U.S. citizens and criminally leaking information to a Trump-hating press to destroy a president they are sworn to serve could prove to be a gusher. As for the reports of Lynch-White House involvement in this unfolding plot to damage and destroy Trump the real question is: What did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it? Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.”
How to reach us -- extensions:
Newsroom.....................317 Circulation....................301 news@dailycorinthian.com advertising@dailycorinthian. Advertising...................339 Classifieds....................302 com Classad@dailycorinthian.com Bookkeeping.................333
Editorials represent the voice of the Daily Corinthian. Editorial columns, letters to the editor and other articles that appear on this page represent the opinions of the writers and the Daily Corinthian may or may not agree.