Medicaid expansion is needed

4/15/2013

As a physician who volunteers for Toledo/Lucas County CareNet, providing a urology clinic for low-income people, I can attest to the value Medicaid expansion can provide to our community (“Test of leadership,” editorial, April 15).

Medicaid expansion has the potential to provide access to care for 275,000 residents of Ohio. They are the working poor, veterans, the mentally ill, and others who live sicker and die younger.

In Lucas County, we know the benefits of providing coordinated access to care for people with low incomes who are uninsured. We have been doing it for 10 years through CareNet.

Because CareNet members have access to the care they need, blood pressure and blood sugars are under control, and use of the emergency department and inpatient days are less than you find in the insured population.

This access can increase across Ohio if Medicaid is expanded in a way that builds off programs such as CareNet.

If the Ohio House does not include Medicaid expansion in the state’s budget, Ohio will never see the increased health and productivity that could result.

While Ohio has a choice on Medicaid expansion, it does not have a choice on other changes that are part of the Affordable Care Act. The other changes will dramatically affect health-care providers, making it impossible for them to stay in business if they continue to provide charity care at current levels.

Because of health-care reform, Medicaid expansion is the only way to keep the health-care safety net intact. Expanding Medicaid is not a health-care issue, it is a moral issue.

DR. ARTHUR MANCINI

ChairmanToledo/Lucas County CareNet

Central Park West

 

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Cancer study needs participants

It’s easy to underestimate the importance of cancer research until you hear the words, “You have cancer.” Those three words can make all the difference in absorbing news about developments in cancer research and appreciating what scientists such as those funded by the American Cancer Society do (“Participants sought for big cancer study,” March 21).

I know, because I am a three-time cancer survivor. Residents of our community have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enroll in the American Cancer Society’s cancer-prevention study, which seeks to help us better understand the factors that cause or prevent cancer.

Individuals between the ages of 30 and 65 who have never been diagnosed with cancer can enroll through April 20. Locations and times of enrollment are listed at ToledoCPS3.org.

All eligible people in our community should consider taking part. Research today will help ensure that future generations will never have to hear those dreaded three words.

ANNE CREECH

Holland

Editor’s note: The writer is state lead ambassador for the Ohio American Cancer Society Action Network.

 

So now you want to honor Viet vets?

I’m a Vietnam war veteran. When I came home, I was called a baby killer, and I was spat on. Now the community wants to honor me and my kind (“Vietnam era vets to be honored June 5-9,” March 22)? It’s too late.

What about the veterans who are still looking for their souls and dying in the streets?

FRED GIBSON

Perrysburg Township

 

Fat cartoon subjects offensive

People who are disliked by Blade editorial cartoonist Kirk Walters often are drawn as fat. As an overweight person, I am offended.

JOHN BERGER

Maumee