News Progress

•December 9, 2015•

By Mike Brothers
NP Managing Editor

While at the Sullivan School board meeting this week Student Council President Austin Minnigerode reported on the success of anti-bullying efforts at Sullivan High School.

It made me think about the whole bullying thing and what it was like when I was growing up.

In the south there were a lot of larger families, so bullying was kept in check by older siblings many times in grade school.

I remember in first grade this one guy was getting picked on by a fourth grader every day at lunch.

He was getting shoved around and his lunch money taken from him on a regular basis.

Until his older sister in the sixth grade found out who the bully was. The sister had done her homework and knew exactly how the bully went home from school every day.

So she waited for him. Needless to say the fourth grade bully was never able to look my friend in the eye after that.

It was a self-correcting society in our small town, but high school came along and the old big brother, big sister protection concept went by the wayside, especially if you didn’t have any older brothers or sisters.

Steve Knight and I had been friends since junior high school. We would hang out after school occasionally as freshmen.

Steve was shorter and susceptible to an occasional barb about his height but he took it in a good natured manner. Read More

•December 9, 2015•

Paragraph to the Editor,

Traditions come and unfortunately some go, but here in the valley of the West Okaw a huge bright star once again announces the season of the King from high atop the giant bins of the Heritage Grain Company. Read More

•December 2, 2015•

By Trudy Lieberman
Rural Health News Service

What a difference six years makes!

In 2009 at the height of the debate on the Affordable Care Act, New York’s former lieutenant government Betsy McCaughey appeared on television and made this startling remark: “Congress would make it mandatory-absolutely require-that every five years people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner.”

McCaughey said the proposed law would help the elderly learn how to “decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go in to hospice care…all to do what’s in society’s best interest or in your family’s best interest and cut your life short.”

Her remarks, though false, played well in the media. Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin showed up on TV to talk about “death panels” that she and others claimed would ration care at the end of life.

“No death panels” became a rallying cry for opposition to the health law. A man I interviewed at a Pennsylvania Wal-Mart that summer brought up the so-called death panels. “If people are going to die, he [Obama] is going to put them to sleep,” he told me. “It’s like Soylent Green (a 1973 science fiction movie). That’s his health plan.”

Another man I met outside a church in Scranton told me, “I am against a panel of doctors telling you when you can live and die.” When I explained that wasn’t what the law would do, he said he didn’t believe me. Read More

•November 25, 2015•

By Trudy Lieberman
Rural Health News Service

Is health insurance really affordable?  That’s the question thousands of Americans who signed up for policies under the Affordable Care Act are beginning to ask as third year open enrollment gets underway.

A few weeks ago a 63-year-old woman, a reader of these columns, contacted me about the health insurance policy she had bought through the Illinois exchange. She lost her coverage after her husband died and had been uninsured for nearly two years before Obamacare came along.  She had some health problems and worried, she said, that she was “playing the odds.” She was just the person the law was intended to help.

Realizing she could lose everything if she had a serious illness, she signed up for a Blue Cross Blue Shield bronze plan, the kind with the lowest premiums and highest deductibles. Her monthly premium for the first year was an affordable $93 because her low income—about $25,000 a year working part time at an insurance agency---qualified her for a tax subsidy of $451.

The catch, of course, was the $6,000 deductible. She also had to pay the full price of her drugs, which didn’t count toward the deductible, although once other medical bills exceeded the deductible, drugs were covered in full. She didn’t use the policy because she didn’t “have $6,000 lying around” for some recommended tests.    Read More

•November 18, 2015•

By Mike Brothers
NP Managing Editor

Hanging on to the things that make me feel young

As far back as I can remember I have loved things that go fast.

From taking my little metal cars and trucks around the dirt track under the maple tree in my front yard to putting my foot to the floor of my hot rod 1965 Chevelle as a teenager, the thrill of the motor head remains inside me.

A couple of weeks ago Trevor’s two and a half year old twins were playing outside when I drove up.

Whenever I’m around, I let them “drive” my truck. One stands in the seat behind the wheel while the other sits in the passenger seat turning every switch and knob to the maximum.

After the drive, I was wrestling Lyla out of the truck as Landon walked around to the front and stopped.

I told him it was time to go inside, but he stayed.

“I want to see the motor,” Landon said, with his sister chiming in immediately.

Had they inherited my motor head affliction? Read More