Uninsured Babies Skyrocket in Pro-Life Ohio

Congrats on being born! Unfortunately this is the end of the line for any government assistance you might need.

Bad news for my haters… I bought two houses for feral cats and they’ll be delivered today. All I can say to my new family members is welcome to my tribe. Anything else is a problem for my landlord.

WE’RE ONLY PRO-LIFE IN OHIO UNTIL YOU’RE BORN… THEN YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN

I rail on this vein a lot and that’s not going to stop me from doing it again today. It’s galling how many times I’ve had to witness some GOP goo rag stand in front of voters and talk about their White Jesus and why that means women undergoing a safe medical procedure are actually engaging in genocide.

I suppose I understand how the human mind could come to that conclusion. I don’t agree; I just see how the mind can arrive at that point and refuse to do 30 more seconds of thinking.

What I don’t understand is how all these pro-life schmucks can sit here and pretend closing the last abortion clinic in Cincinnati is somehow more pro-life than doing something to fix our abominable “uninsured baby” problem which should be an oxymoron in a society as rich as ours.

From Mike Brookbank of news5cleveland.com:

CLEVELAND — The sad reality for a growing number of children in Ohio is that they are navigating through their first few years of life facing uncertainty and possibly unnecessary illness.

The Buckeye State now ranks third in the nation for the number of children between newborn to 6 years old that don't have access to health insurance.

In Cuyahoga County, there's an estimated 2,300 uninsured babies, toddlers and preschoolers.

Dr. Deborah Friedman, a pediatrician at The Centers in Cleveland, said she has "definitely worked in situations where people were turned away."

Friedman reacted to new findings by Georgetown University that show a 40% spike in the number of uninsured babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Ohio.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I would love to treat Junior for tuberculosis—we have the cure in the pharmacy downstairs—unfortunately you live in the one industrialized country in the world without universal healthcare so unfortunately Junior’s lung problem is no longer my problem. Thank you and good day.”

Any centrist horseshit like talk of “a public option” is carrying the intellectual water for a system where the above paragraph isn’t some spoof from a horror movie but actual real life.

ROAD NAZI GETS TASTE OF HIS OWN MEDICINE

As a state trooper one of your primary job responsibilities is to take regular people battling drug addiction to jail where they almost assuredly won’t have access to the mental healthcare required to alleviate their problems.

While that power might feel intoxicating, it’s still a crime to steal those drugs.

From Monroe Trombly of mansfieldjournalnews.com:

MANSFIELD - A former trooper with the Mansfield post of the Ohio Highway Patrol has been indicted on three felony charges after he was placed on administrative leave in December when drug evidence from a traffic stop was found to be missing. 

Preston Brooks, 32, has been indicted by a Richland County grand jury on two counts of tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony, and one count of theft of drugs, a fourth-degree felony. 

Brooks is scheduled to be arraigned by Richland County Common Pleas Magistrate Jeffrey Uhrich at 1 p.m. Jan 14. 

Brooks was placed on leave Dec. 4 and terminated on Dec. 27.

In a termination letter, Thomas Stickrath, director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, wrote that Brooks violated the following patrol rules and regulations: false statement, truthfulness, conduct unbecoming an officer, evidence and recovered property. 

Do you know what kind of weight you have to steal from drug dealers before the Ohio Highway Patrol thinks “we should probably investigate this asshole”?

This guy either had a pill problem himself or his wife/girlfriend/non-binary lover already accessed the safe deposit box and is drinking on a beach while Preston’s work to paint him as a good cop who got over his skis too much and made the wrong decision a couple hundred times. Therefore only deserves a couple years of non-reporting probation.

MIDDLEMEN: CORRUPTION NOT OUR FAULT

One of the best positions to play in capitalism is the middle man. You don’t produce anything. You don’t deal with the public. You simply sit on some products from anywhere between 30 seconds to a couple of years and turn a profit.

Anyway, the state accused the middlemen who run the benefits for the state’s workers’ compensation program of overcharging the state. Their defense seems to be of accusing the state of doing the exact same thing.

From Marty Schladen of dispatch.com:

The pharmacy middleman that the state accuses of false dealing is now accusing a state agency of the same thing.

In a response to a lawsuit by the state, pharmacy benefit manager OptumRx said the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation “breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.” The company said the state did so by “unilaterally” changing Ohio Administrative Code rules governing how much PBMs such as Optum paid the bureau for drugs in the middle of contract negotiations in 2016.

The Ohio attorney general’s office, which is handling the lawsuit for the bureau, said that’s bunk.

The bureau, which is funded by assessments on employers, spends about $86 million a year on prescription drugs for injured workers.

I’m no lawyer so I can’t ascertain the merit of the “I know you are but what am I?” defense and how it will play out in court.

What is depressing is that this squabbling will take money out of the pockets of injured Ohio workers.

NEW YORK CITY BILLIONAIRE BRIBES ENOUGH OHIOANS TO CARE ABOUT HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

Billionaire is almost a loaded term these days because it obscures just how rich these vampires are. The average American can’t wrap their heads around it.

But one clear way to prove how much money they have is to show that you can basically launch a presidential campaign with 0% public support and bribe enough people where the media has to treat you like any other candidate in the race.

From Darrel Rowland of dispatch.com:

Sixty staffers already on board.

More than a dozen field offices on the way.

Top talent hired to run the show.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is laying the groundwork for a presidential primary campaign like Ohioans have never seen.

It goes without saying that the multi-billionaire has the money to do it.

Obviously Bloomberg is not writing off the importance of Ohio in 2020 as some are, says Aaron Pickrell, his state director. The Buckeye State is key to moving voters beyond the easy stereotype of a generic New York rich guy to showing not only can he can relate to the problems of average people, but also offer solutions to their most pressing problems, Pickrell said.

I’ll see Joe Biden Democrats in Hell. But there better be a special section unlocked only for the likes of Michael Bloomberg. This guy was giving the keynote speech at the Republican Convention in 2004. He enacted the wildly racist stop-and-frisk law.

But he has so much money now I have to pretend that he cares about things he has never cared about because he sees Bernie Sanders coming down the tracks and is willing to do anything to stop that from happening.

THE CHARMED LIFE OF MAYOR MICHAEL GINTHER

I used to think I wanted to be a politician. It was a naive thought.

The fact is the job requirement of being a mayor of “progressive oasis” like Columbus Ohio requires you to spend a weekend in San Francisco pretending your progressive has benches at every bench stop.

From Hayleigh Colombo of bizjournals.com:

Columbus has three years until it hosts its next high-profile gathering of convention planners, but local tourism officials and Mayor Andrew Ginther are already working to promote the city and event to possible attendees.

One of their first stops: San Francisco.

Experience Columbus CEO Brian Ross and Ginther are on the West Coast this week at the same Professional Convention Managers Association event that Columbus will host in 2023.

PCMA's decision to host its Convening Leaders event here was a big get for Columbus' tourism scene, much like the American Society of Association Executives' decision to host its 2019 convention here. That's because PCMA attendees are among the decision-makers for their own organizations' event-planning needs, meaning the convention has the potential to result in more business for Columbus.

I can only imagine how impressed these West Coast Elite figures are by Columbus Mayor Andy Ginther. Paying his hotel fees is clearly beneficial for Columbus.

THOSE WMDs. Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits… The real reason Costco employees check receipts at exists… A diet guru thinks you should eat dinner at 2 in the afternoon…. How dog parks took over the urban landscape… Why are young Americans killing themselves?