ACA marketplace works, other state health policies don’t
Other than the state wanting to collect millions in middleman fees from insurance companies paying to be on the exchange, it makes no sense for Georgia to block the federally run ACA health insurance marketplace so it can run its own.
When the ACA started, it was rocky, and there was a learning curve. It now works so well that the percentage of Georgians using it and gaining healthcare access grows every year. State Sen. Ben Watson has proposed a bill to take Georgia off the ACA and go it alone. Watson is surely aware of the state’s policy failures that have caused Georgia to rank at the bottom for healthcare.
Real problems that need fixing are the lack of health care providers in rural areas across the state, the high infant and maternal mortality rates, poor oversight for nursing homes, hospital closures and the mental health care crisis.
The ACA market is working, but a whole lot of other things need fixing. Start there, please.
CHRIS MILLER, ROSWELL
COVID still here, so make adjustments wisely
I can’t recall politicians declaring “victory” regarding COVID, and they likely won’t. However, each of us adjusts.
Young people say they were “over it” months ago. Recently we attended an event at the Cobb Energy Center and the comedian opened with a joke about COVID. There were thousands of people in the venue, and I saw few masks.
The same day, I attended a Rotary meeting where there were no masks and people were hugging. If someone told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it? Probably not, unless your commanding officer told you to do it (rappelling) with a platoon of U.S. Marines, which I did. If someone told you to jump out of an airplane from 14,000 feet, you probably wouldn’t do it unless your family chose to do it, in which case you might, which we did.
A rewarding life comes with some risks and choices. Life is a series of adjustments.
DANIEL F. KIRK, KENNESAW
