Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

We can’t stop now, Arizona. We need to continue the conversation about repealing the disastrous health care system called the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare. While dialogue about a bipartisan effort to draft a new bill may be the feel-good news of the moment, it must be known that this kind of effort will end up propping up the current law and further entrench the current failing system of Medicaid.

One look at today’s U.S. immigration process reveals a broken and outdated system. While I’m encouraged to see that Congress would like to take steps to modernize it, the recently proposed RAISE Act would be a step backward in the efforts of encouraging economic prosperity for all Americans. The bill leaves immigrants with fewer options than they already had and fails to address the economic challenges we face.

Don’t be fooled by Flake’s innocuous reasons he professes for splitting up the 9th Circuit. Targeting our courts based on ideological disagreement is profoundly dangerous to this country and a threat to each and every one of us.

Not only has American society come a long way since the so-called war on drugs began during the Reagan administration, but our attitudes toward drugs have changed as well. When harsher enforcement and penalties began during the 1980s, “opioid epidemic” had not entered our lexicon and prescription drug abuse was nascent.

The American Friends Service Committee’s (AFSC) recent report, “Drug Sentencing in Arizona: A Prescription for Failure,” relies upon faulty analysis and inadequate research to inaccurately depict Arizona as an incarceration-first state, and blames our sentencing statutes for our substance abuse problems. Arizona’s sentencing statutes are not responsible for our substance abuse problems. People abusing drugs, both prescription and illicit, are the real reason for our substance abuse problems.

This is an open letter to Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria. My name is Jeff Fortney. I live in Cave Creek. Since 2004 I have been a public school teacher, teaching students to help them progress toward becoming good members of our Arizona society.

Recent polls indicate that 70-80 percent of Americans support cornerstones of the Affordable Care Act, including incentivizing states to expand Medicaid while concurrently assisting low- and moderate-income people in obtaining affordable health coverage, and prohibiting insurers from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

The North American Free Trade Agreement has been a critical component to Arizona’s economic success over the last nearly 25 years. The deal between the U.S., Canada and Mexico has allowed businesses to boom and fueled tremendous job growth.

Let’s drop the attempts to penalize people over 50 years of age for being older or sicker. It’s not fair to charge them disproportionately more for coverage just because of their age. And it’s not fair – or right – to scale back or eliminate the tax credits and subsidies that help low-income older Americans afford health insurance.

Moving forward, we hope to see states take a leadership role in reforming our nation’s health care. Bipartisan efforts by the nation’s governors give us hope that the lessons states have learned regarding Medicaid can be applied to the national debate.