Misery loves company
Tennessee has chalked up another “worst.”
Now we’re sixth in the nation on the list of “Worst states for financial security” of residents.
The ranking is based on 67 measures, including income, assets, jobs, business growth, bankruptcies, home ownership and other factors, according to the Corporation for Enterprise Development.
But wait a minute, didn’t we just get some fancy economic development award for the second year in a row? Answer: Yes. Business Facilities, a national publication focused on site selection and economic development, named Tennessee its 2014 State of the Year. The award cited Tennessee’s “major economic development projects” which in 2014 included “Volkswagen Group of America’s Chattanooga expansion creating 2,000 jobs with an investment of $600 million,” along with three other business investments or expansions that brought another 3,500 jobs.
Maybe sooner or later, some of those new jobs in our union-unfriendly state (our lawmakers are quoted often saying VW talks with UAW scare away jobs) will pay enough to pull our residents out of debt.
By the way, Georgia is No. 2 and Alabama is No. 3 on the “worst states for financial security” list.
Walking the Insure Tennessee line
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam walked a tightrope this week. And he slipped.
He tried to sell a Capitol full of Republicans on a Tennessee version of Obamacare, and to do it, he had to keep trashing the president for whom the Affordable Care Act has been nicknamed — along with the federal program itself.
This wasn’t just a discouraging tightrope act without a net. It also was bizarrely entertaining for news junkies.
Haslam calls his Insure Tennessee waiver proposal a “market-driven” project to help nearly 3 million Tennesseans obtain medical insurance. The program would use federal ACA money to provide vouchers to low-income workers who could use them to join their employers’ health insurance programs. Other uninsured workers would pay a modest premium and co-pays with incentives for healthy behaviors.
Haslam, making his pitch to the General Assembly, told a disparaging Obama story from an annual National Governors Association meeting: Asked why he didn’t make Medicaid a block-grant program and free states from federal health insurance rules, the president reportedly replied “Because I don’t trust you to take care of the least of these [needy sick people].
In the next breath, Haslam waved that same neediness in front of the General Assembly, which last year passed a law requiring Haslam to receive their blessing before he can expand Tennessee Medicaid and join Obamacare — a program that would cost Tennessee $1.7 billion but bring in $22.5 billion. A program that will not cost Tennessee, but instead will bring back here from other states the federal tax dollars Tennesseans already have and are paying for health care.
As far-fetched as it seems for our lawmakers to oppose this, they did. Haslam’s task was and still is to convince 24 Republicans in the House and 17 Republicans in the Senate to like his version of Obamacare in order a squeak a majority vote. But to even get that vote, his proposal had to get the nod of the Senate’s Health committee. On Wednesday, the panel voted 7-4 against the proposal. Three of the no votes were from area senators Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga, Mike Bell of Riceville and Janice Bowling of Tullahoma.
Before the vote, Sen. Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, said: “What I’m hearing from my constituents is they’re just tired of being beholden to the federal government.”
Huh? Beholden?
Sorry, governor. But you did bring it on yourself, after all. You can’t play partisan red and trash the president’s program from one side of your mouth, but extol his program as a way to help Tennesseans take the high road and meet our needs from the other side. And you could have made this decision all by yourself in the beginning — before that pesky gubernatorial election when you stood against opting Tennessee into Obamacare so you could court all those anti-Obama votes.
Hats off to Johnny Isakson
A bill aimed at reducing a suicide epidemic among military veterans finally received the affirmative Senate vote it needed to become law. Despite the bill’s no-brainer and near-unanimous support, the process took more than a year and more than a little help from Georgia’s Republican senator Johnny Isakson.
The House passed the bill unanimously last month, but it had been blocked all last year by then-Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who said the bill duplicated existing programs. Coburn also objected to the $22 million price tag. Coburn retired in January, but cost concerns lingered among some senators. Meanwhile, between 18 and 22 veterans continued to commit suicide daily, according to a 2013 study released by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Enter Johnny Isakson, who also is a veteran and who became the new Senate Veterans Affairs Committee chairman this month. Isakson also recently faced controversy over veteran care in the Peach State after a Cobb County veteran who had been labeled in internal VA documents as a “high risk for suicide” killed her three young children and herself.
Isakson worked with other lawmakers to tweak the latest version of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act to require the VA to find money for suicide-prevention programs within its existing $160 billion budget. He also, behind the scenes, persuaded other senators from both sides of the aisle to withdraw amendments to the bill which would delay it further by forcing a House-Senate conference committee.
Now, with an expected signature from the president, the act will improve mental health treatment for veterans by beefing up the number and caliber of psychiatrists in the VA, thanks to a new incentives plan to repay student loans for new VA psychiatrists. The bill also will highlight development of new peer support groups and community outreach with veterans’ service groups.