Changing purple states to blue
The Bible is a book of human behavior. It’s the answer to making intransigent Republican senators “do their job,” of giving Judge Merrick Garland a fair hearing. My text: Esther. Esther is about plotting and planning the overthrow of an innocent man and his people by government officials. Esther saved her people. We must save our democracy.
At present, Sens. Mitch McConnell (Zeresh) and Chuck Grassley (Haman) “cast Pur, that is a lot,” against President Obama and his selection of Judge Merrick Garland to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. McConnell and Grassley seem to think they are dictators of the Senate, not members of the Senate, refusing to greet-and-meet with Garland. As citizen/voters, we can ameliorate this behavior on more than one front.
We can write, call, agitate on one front; on another, we can change a purple state into a blue state. We must understand that Congress has driven Donald Trump supporters mad, and we as the assumed sane, can use our own madness/anger to concentrate on Republican senators running in purple states to turn their states blue by seating Democrats in their Senate seats. The Esther class, male/female can do this.SENATORS UP FOR RE-ELECTION IN 2016: http://www.periodicalpress.senate.gov/reelection-2016/ :
U.S. Senate seats to be contested in 2016: http://www.270towin.com/2016-senate-election/
Esthers can change the tenor Congress with organized voter effort so that the political “stake 50 cubits high” constructed by Senate intransigents McConnell and Grassley to hang Obama and Garland will prove to be our Purim.
Mary Gravitt
Protect vulnerable populations
Managed Medicaid is nearly upon us, and Senate File 2213 needs your support. The official transition date to managed care organizations is April 1, but we are still lacking information regarding oversight, management, and individual provider contracts. Some mental-health providers are pre-emptively choosing to stop accepting Medicaid patients in light of the confusion and complications surrounding the transition. This means underserved populations now face even greater barriers in accessing health care. We are moving in the wrong direction in providing what should be a basic human right.
As a social work student in health care, I have no answers for the myriad families struggling to understand what managed care will mean for the future of their health. The delays and unanswered questions related to its implementation have added undue stress to the lives of individuals already suffering from serious illness, adding insult to injury.
I urge you to contact your local representatives. Tell them to strengthen oversight for health care. Senate File 2213 was approved by the Senate but faces challenges in the House. Your support of the bill is necessary in order to persuade our lawmakers to protect our most vulnerable populations. It does not appear we can halt the move at this moment, but we still have an obligation to mitigate the damages it is likely to cause.
Melanie Berry
Assisted suicide is wrong
Three out of five Iowans favor assisted suicide, according to a Des Moines Register poll.
Hippocrates understood hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ there is no Right to Die.
The Hippocratic Oath reads in part: “Nor shall any man’s entreaty prevail upon me to administer poison to anyone; neither will I counsel any man to do so. Moreover, I will give no sort of medicine to any pregnant woman, with a view to destroy the child.”
“But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.” Proverbs 8:36
Three out of five Iowans are God-haters.
Dan Holman