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opinion
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KANSAN.COM | THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2017
You know it's a Monday when you finally realize there's a bunch of stains on your t shirt at 3:30
I do feel connected to dying fruit, it is a living think just like me!
If my roommate can have loud sex when I'm trying to sleep, then I can have loud parties when she's trying to sleep
I have something called slight hypochondria
Do you think phone companies hire people with really big hands for advertisements to make their phones look smaller in comparison?
Changing my KU password f---- me up for at least a month
Maybe I'l meet my future ex at this place
Wait, I'll just ask my parents what's hot on Etsy right now
If a midterm is supposed to take 2 and a half hours, professors should at least provide food.
Aladdin is so underrated.
Josh Jackson is lowkey ruining my life.
I'm really a f--- girl at heart.
My warrior name is Beyonce Pad Thai.
Level of struggle right now: baked on a buttery crispy flake.
I had a great day just because I saw a lot of dogs.
Putting the KINK in Kinkos'.
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My first amendment class is going over a case where a guy got in trouble for sending dirty pictures in the mail. Imagine having to buy a stamp to send
To send in an FFA, text 785-289-8351
I bet CVS has seen some shit.
I really enjoy my morning political rants with the lady that signs the athletes into class.
nudes.
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Munoz: The myth of the ACA replacement
Illustration by Erica Gonzales/KANSAN
VINCE MUNOZ @vmunoz_18
On Monday, House Republican leaders released a bill to finally repeal and replace former President Barack Obama's health care law. Named the "American Health Care Act," it is undoubtedly a radical departure from the policy of the past seven years. Though experts will parse the various provisions costs and benefits, one provision already tells me that, if enacted, the bill is doomed to fail: the continuous coverage incentive.
Despite the legalistic name, the continuous-coverage incentive is fairly easy to understand. If someone is uninsured for more than 63 days, they will have to pay a 30 percent increase in their premiums for a year after they regain coverage. In other words, go without coverage for two months and you'll have to pay an extra monthly fee for a year. This is designed to replace the individual mandate - the tax penalty uninsured Americans have to pay under the Affordable Care Act.
Politically, it is a smart move for the GOP to eliminate the provision. Only 35 percent of Americans support the individual mandate, but it is one of the most important provisions.
For private health insurance companies to function financially, they need more healthy clients who draw less expensive insurance claims. Because the Affordable Care Act outlawed companies' ability to turn down patients with pre-existing conditions, these more expensive patients signed up for insurance. To keep this from causing prices to skyrocket, the law requires everyone to buy insurance — including healthy, cheaper patients who otherwise it would risk going without it to save money.
the situation worse?
However, the new bill does not fully eliminate the effects of the mandate. The continuous-coverage incentive replaces a tax with a fine. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) criticized the bill in saying, "You will no longer have to pay a penalty to the government, but you will have to pay a penalty to your insurance company."
So how does this make
Well, Republicans are trying to have it both ways with an individual mandate. They simultaneously want to incentivize healthy individuals to buy insurance to prevent a spike in prices, but they want to avoid the political backlash that Obamacare prompted. To accomplish this, they lowered the penalty for being uninsured and turned the tax into a private fee. Therein lies its fatal flaw.
The Affordable Care Act never had high enough penalties to balance out the system. Pundits even created terms to describe 20-something patients who chose to pay the tax over insurance companies, "young invincibles." The continuous-coverage incentive has even lower fines so clearly even less people will sign up.
Fundamentally, healthy people pay for sick people's healthcare; it's unavoidable given the realities of the healthcare system. This has always been the case. It's true in both private and public healthcare systems.
In the former, healthy insurance customers pay more money to the insurance company and their extra cash pays for expensive, sicker patients. In the latter, healthy citizens' taxes pay for expensive sick citizens. Until politicians are honest about that fact with their constituents, neither political party will be able to successfully craft and implement a long-term healthcare overhaul that the nation so desperately needs.
Vince Munoz is a junior from Topeka studying Political Science and Strategic Communications.
- Edited by Sean Collins
Shafton: Legislature should end gerrymandering
▶ DANIEL SHAFTON
@DDshaft
Recently, an amendment to the Kansas Constitution was introduced in the state legislature, which will finally take politics out of redistricting and give a greater voice to all voters in Kansas.
Disclaimer: Daniel Shafton is currently an intern for Representative Brett Parker (D-29).
Currently, the task or re-drawing district lines is done every ten years after
the census by the entire state legislature. The problem with this is by allowing the entire legislature to work on re-districting, politics is essentially forced to come into play. Drawing district lines is supposed to be based on numbers gathered from the census, there is nothing that should be considered political or be influenced by politics.
I strongly believe that
If there was a large increase or decrease in the amount of people who lives in a particular city or neighborhood that is what should be reflected. Instead, what we often see is the party that's in control at the time of the re-districting gerrymanders, and thus fundamentally and unfairly influences the results of the next ten years of elections.
gerymandering is one of the largest issues currently facing our country. I'm not alone in this stance; recently, President Barack Obama formed the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which he asked former Attorney General Eric Holder to chair.
That last point is exactly what the amendment, HCR 5011, aims to do. This amendment is the definition of common sense reform which is probably why it has so much bi-partisan support with 28 co-sponsors currently on board. This bill helps in three areas: increasing voter turnout, making elections more fair, and thus, making elections more competitive.
The goal of this committee is three fold: one, direct resources into winning targeted state elections, two, form legal challenges on existing maps and three, to push ballot initiatives for nonpartisan district drawing commissions.
In a country that is seeing all time lows in voter turnout from national elections all the way down to county elections, we need to give something to the people of our great nation to be hopeful about, something that makes them feel their voice is being heard.
"We need to give something to the people of our great nation to be hopeful about,"
I had the opportunity to spend my summer working
with MainStream Educational Foundation going door to door with the sole purpose of increasing voter turnout. Whilst talking to person after person, a trend began to develop. No one wanted to vote in the local election because they felt their vote did not matter. I can't count the amount of times I heard something on the lines of, "Oh well I don't plan on voting in the primaries because my vote doesn't matter where I live, so-and-so will win no matter what". By showing the citizens of Kansas that their votes are being more strongly and accurately voiced, maybe we will see an increase in voter turnout.
Daniel Shafton is a junior from Overland Park studying psychology.
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Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Lara Korte, Christian Hardy, Tucker Paine and Vince Munoz.
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