Practicing What We Preach?

It's not often that we wax philosophical here at My Rural America. Mostly, we're about facts and how the facts affect our rural families, so we're not about to start preaching now while Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC) and John Ensign (R-NV) make the news as they join the ranks of other elected officials who have shamed their families.

However, there are several new studies out that focus on numbers of divorces, teenage pregnancies and pornography readers. Until now, we hadn't connected the dots to how states vote and where families are strongest -- moderate and liberal voting states, but see below for some serious detail to help you get started thinking:

• USA TODAY 2008 Poll: 54% of Americans say they know someone who has been unfaithful.
• Guttmacher Institute 2006 Data: Pornography more prevalent in states where "more people agree that 'I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage.'"
• US Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract: States that voted for conservative Senator John McCain (R-AZ) in November 2008 had the highest divorce rates in 2006.

For more details about how conservatives are struggling with the matters they preach about the most, "The Prurient Trap" by NY Times Op Ed writer Charles M. Blow brings a spotlight to the families, and also a really good chart so that you can see where your state falls in the statistical research.

What's most interesting to us is how these conservative states -- states with the highest divorce rates, highest number of teenage pregnancies and the most people sitting around reading pornography -- also have the most elected officials who continually vote to make things more difficult for families.

For 2008, this meant these officials were most likely to votes against State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and most likely to vote to kill the New GI Bill. For 2009, these same officials are more likely now to be dragging their feet on health care for all. Why? Let us know your comments.

ISO Health Care

The health care debate has flared up in Congress, with many agreeing that reform is necessary but with not quite enough (yet!) agreeing on how to begin fixing the problem. For rural families, the challenges of accessing affordable health care are likely more complicated than for their city cousins, e.g., a partial list of added challenges includes:

• State Children's Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) ... a great program which more than 1/3 of rural kids benefit from, but many families still haven't signed up. What does it take to get the word out?
• Attracting doctors to our small communities.
• Keeping the doctors once we're recruited them. (Doctors in rural communities have higher costs and often lack the advantage of telemedicine because of still lagging broadband shortages.)
• Keeping hospitals open when they lack the advantages of big city hospitals that can afford more patients and more equipment.

To help you sort out the debate, please scroll down the left column of this blog to see Senator Sherrod Brown discuss the need for a strong public option, i.e., a government sponsored option that would serve as an incentive for private health insurers to keep their prices affordable.

In Search of Health-Care Reform

One thing for certain, we know that 80 per cent of US citizens are less than happy about their current health care situation, so we were stunned to see on television some of our elected officials saying that 80 percent of US citizens are happy with their current health care options. We were also shocked to see that some in Congress still don't get it ... sure, Canadians sometimes have to wait a bit for a doctor, but so do we -- no news about that.

But what can we do? The Washington Post has made a good start on how we might educate ourselves about the options President Obama and the Congress are beginning to consider. Here are three of the Post's recent websites.

• In Search of Healthcare Reform
• Decision Makers Differ on How to Mend Broken Health System
• Health Care Reform 2009
• Sphere -- The Washington Post's new Internet site for multiple stories, including blogs on health care
  

Harry and Louise May Have Changed Their Minds

E.J. Dionne, Jr. has reported in the Washington Post (6/8/2009) that health care reform can mean as many as 50 million new customers for the health care industry, while President Obama has said that:

"Reform cannot mean focusing on expanded coverage alone" as he emphasized that reform must also be about "A serious, sustained effort to reduce the growth rate of health care costs."

Read more about why "Harry and Louise" -- "ad people" representatives of the health care industry who lead the charge in killing health care in the 1990's -- may have changed their minds at "Harry & Louise Have Changed".

"Surviving Without Newspapers"

It is My Rural America's position that newspapers are an important key to keeping our democracy alive and well. After all, if citizens cannot rely upon their newspapers' to maintain independent investigatory reporting, how will they know what their elected officials really do ... vote for ... vote against? And where will be the "check & balance" that citizens need to understand the bills and the debate about the choices in health care? the need for jobs? the importance of fair trade? the desperate need for peace worldwide.

Last autumn, My Rural America targeted three issues:

1. The New GI Bill
2. SCHIP ... State Children's Health Insurance Program
3. HR 4529, Vote # 259 on June 17, 2004 -- a lesser known bill that resulted in good US jobs being shipped out of the country, e.g., Virginia alone lost 75,000 jobs to overseas.

It was an effective campaign, but for our purposes today, what was particularly shocking ... and desperately sad ... was the people who wrote in saying to the effect "my congressman wouldn't vote against GI benefits, children's health or to approve sending jobs overseas." These people were wrong -- many were educated, and clearly not stupid nor lazy or disinterested. Rather, they lacked information -- information which never appears in their home town papers, and often is either not covered by blogs or not fact-checked.

Over the next weeks, readers may expect a series of stories about how important newspapers are. For today, we share "Surviving Without Newspapers" by A.J. Liebling and published in the New York Times on 6/6/2009.