September 22, 2013

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Winless Panthers, Giants fight for 1st victory of season

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VOL. 118, NO. 287 WWW.THEITEM.COM

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2013 | SUMTER, SOUTH CAROLINA

FOUNDED OCTOBER 15, 1894

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Locals bag 11-foot gator BY ROBERT J. BAKER bbaker@theitem.com

PHOTO PROVIDED

Matt Casselman, Brad Phillips and Alex Brammer, all of Manning, pose with an 11-foot alligator the men harvested on Friday morning.

SUMMERTON — The area around the small town known as one of the crucibles of the civil rights movement is getting a reputation with tri-county alligator hunters. Hunters shared photographs with The Item of three large gators nabbed in

the past week, the first week of the month-long South Carolina Alligator Harvest closely monitored by the state Department of Natural Resources. Though declared illegal in 1964, the 44-year ban on alligator hunting was rescinded for one month each year starting in 2008. Now, DNR allows up to 1,200 hunters each year the

chance to take home only one adult alligator each. “My dad was the one that got the ticket in the drawing this year,” said Jeff Carter, who nabbed an 11-foot, 7-inch gator weighing 680 pounds on the season’s opening day, Sept. 14. He was joined by his father, Cecil Carter, and his brother and SEE GATOR, PAGE A8

Shaw, groups honor POW/MIA Health care reform could leave access up to geography BY BRISTOW MARCHANT bmarchant@theitem.com

There were several times during World War II that Thomas Grove thought he was going to die, both before and after his capture by the forces of Nazi Germany. Instead, the 88-year-old Columbia resident survived deployment to the

Pacific Theater, combat in the Battle of the Bulge, and several months in a German prisoner of war camp to speak Friday at Shaw Air Force Base in honor of his colleagues who weren’t so lucky. “Your grandfathers saved me in combat,” Grove told SEE POW/MIA, PAGE A6

ABOVE: Thomas Grove, who was held as a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II, spoke at Friday’s POW/MIA Recognition Day ceremony at Shaw Air Force Base. RIGHT: Representatives of the Army, the Air Force and the Sumter chapter of the S.C. Combat Veterans Group laid a wreath beside the Fallen Airmen Memorial on Friday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Having health insurance used to hinge on where you worked and what your medical history said. Soon, that won’t matter, with open-access markets for subsidized coverage coming Oct. 1 under President Obama’s overhaul. But there’s a new wild card, something that didn’t seem so critical when Congress passed the Affordable Care Act back in 2010: where you live. Entrenched political divisions over “Obamacare” have driven most Republican-led states to turn their backs on the biggest expansion of the social safety net in a half century. If you’re uninsured in a state that’s opposed, you may not get much help picking the right private health plan for your budget and your family’s needs. The differences will be more glaring if you’re poor and your state rejected the law’s Medicaid expansion. Unless leaders reverse course, odds are you’ll remain uninsured. That’s because people below the poverty line do not qualify SEE OVERHAUL, PAGE A9

PHOTOS BY BRISTOW MARCHANT / THE ITEM

HEALTH CARE LAW CHANGES AT A GLANCE Here is a look at some of the key changes to health care services under the Affordable Care Act: ESSENTIAL HEALTH BENEFITS

Servicemen at Shaw Air Force Base salute the flag from across Memorial Lake on base Friday. Soldiers and airmen took part in a POW/MIA remembrance ceremony beside the Fallen Airmen Memorial, capping 24 hours of events honoring missing veterans and prisoners of war.

Under the law, health insurers must cover 10 essential benefits. This will make health plans more costly, but also more comprehensive. Starting next year, the rules will apply to all plans offered to individuals or through the small-group market to employers with 50 or fewer workers. The essential-benefits requirement does not apply to plans offered by larger employers, which typically offer most of these, already. The covered benefits are: ambulatory patient services; emergency services; hospitalization; maternity and newborn care; mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative services and devices; laboratory services; SEE CHANGES, PAGE A9

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INSIDE 5 SECTIONS, 36 PAGES

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