Opinion

This week the Newton Kansan hosted a little gathering in downtown, one that while we wanted to invite the entire world to we did not - it was not, really, the kind of thing for the entire Newton community.

Medicaid expansion refusal is disturbing As a retired Nurse Practitioner, I find it disturbing that Kansas is one of only 10 states that has refused Medicaid Expansion. When I plead with my representative to help champion the cause for 150,000 Kansans who are refused coverage, he advises that they should go to the “exchanges”. The exchanges are the part of the Affordable Care Act that allows for people to buy health insurance at a reduced rate if their income is low enough for them to qualify. He told me that his daughter gets platinum health care coverage through the exchanges, ie the ACA. But he won’t allow for the ACA’s guidelines to help those people who are in the “gap”. That is, they earn to little (yes, too little) to buy insurance on the exchanges. The ACA says they should get their coverage through Medicaid. So, my representative embraces the ACA for his daughter but refuses it for those who earn less than her family.

Land is the foundation of agriculture, whether it’s the fertile, deep soils along river bottoms that nourish row crops or the rolling hills of grass waiting to be eaten by livestock. Everything a farmer or rancher does begins with the land.

In Saturdays Kansan, Tom Knapp once again illustrates that it pays to follow the rules taught in my High School English Class. Always verify your information with at least three independent verifiable sources.

A coalition of dozens of peace and justice organizations (https:// bit.ly/StopWarOrgs) is collecting signers on a statement to Presidents Biden, Zelensky and Putin telling them that the time has come to end the war in Ukraine. Please consider adding your signature at https://bit.ly/ StopWarSignup.