Hey everyone!
As you know, tomorrow is Election Day! Which means it’s time for the post I’ve been working on for a long time. I’ve talked to Rebecca about this to make sure I got it straight, so here goes…
Rebecca McClanahan: On the Issues!
I feel that there are three main issues that Rebecca McClanahan focuses on continually – jobs/economy, education, and healthcare. What does she have to say about them? Well, they are all interlinked for our district.
Representative McClanahan believes that fixing the job situation and the economy is more complex than simply cutting taxes/red tape. McClanahan said specifically “the number one quality of life issue to influence an employer to establish in a community is high quality education.” Without a good education, we cannot have a good workforce. Therefore, we have an obligation to support public education. Therefore, McClanahan is in support of programs that keep Missouri’s best and brightest in the area. Take, for example, the Bright Flight scholarship. The Bright Flight scholarship program is designed to help high ACT scoring individuals with tuition if they go to school at an in-state public institution. This past year, many Bright Flight Scholarships (including myself) were upset to see our scholarship funds cut. McClanahan says that the purpose of the scholarship was to increase with inflation, and fought the cuts. She believes that the funds should be increased as the program was set to do.
McClanahan also fought “Access Missouri” scholarships. Why? The program gives twice as much money to students attending non-state run institutions instead of state universities (for more information, click here.) McClanahan believes that by encouraging enrollment at universities such as Truman State University, we help enhance employers of choice. According to the Kirksville Chamber of Commerce (website here), education and health services are the 2nd largest employer, losing only to the government by a few jobs. So by fighting for education we also encourage employment.
The same theory applies to healthcare. McClanahan believes that we need to focus on decisions that can be made at the state level by protecting patient care for seniors and the disabled. She believes the eligibility for coverage is a huge problem with 180,000 people cut off from healthcare. That being said, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) can bring a lot of good to Missouri. Rebecca says the PPACA offers Missouri:
- - more eligibility for Medicaid at 133% of the federal poverty level
- - it can return the eligibility level to pre-2005 levels
- - an increase in access to insurance (more than any single piece of legislation
- - AND… it will draw down federal matching dollars.
So what does drawing down matching funds do for Missouri? It can bring quite a bit of money to the state institutions and does NOT come out of our state budget. So in the end, more Missourians are covered with federal funds.
Let’s follow this train of thought. The federal government provides Missouri with matching funds. This allows a boost to the economy…without raising state taxes or cutting our budget? More healthcare jobs are needed to support the newly insured. More teachers are needed to train the healthcare professionals. Kirksville’s two biggest employment fields? Education and healthcare.
Rebecca, I like the way you think.
As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments! Don’t forget to vote tomorrow!
- - Abi
P.S. What did you think about the Robo-Call scandal?
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