Bye Bye Vouchers

One of the most cruel, inhumane and appalling aspects of the new budget was the selling off of Ohio's tobacco tax fund in a misguided, inefficient effort to enact wholesale education reform. Stealing money that many states use to help cancer stricken patients access screening and health care for an untried, slapdash and temporary band aid for school funding was some of the worst public policy to come down the pike in recent years. Ohio ranks 9th in the nation for cancer mortality, thousands of Ohioans die needlessly because of lack of access to cancer care.Up to one third of all cancer deaths could be eliminated if people had access to quality health care - in Ohio thats over 8,000 people every year. These cancer victims will pay for their lives because the state took money to treat them and sold it at a bargain price to provide school funding. It was bad enough to watch Republicans ignore the problem. Its beyond belief that my own party would enact similar heartless policies. Perhaps the folks in Columbus will find some compassion in their hearts and begin to address this program once they have relief from the high cost of school vouchers. Even more gutless and appalling is the attempt to get good PR by trying to use coverage for children's health care as a fig leaf. Nice to deal with childhood cancers, but they are a miniscule part of the problem. Until then, the needless cancer death of every Ohioan should be placed directly on the shoulders of those in Columbus. Democratic policymakers need to learn compassion and recognize that adults with cancer are also worthy people whose lives are worth saving. 8,200 more Ohioans will die each year until you decide to take action.

I think that a small portion of the tobacco settlement money should go for programs that eliminate smoking, not for health care of those already addicted. After, all we have all been paying that out of our pockets for years without one $ from big tobacco. Smokers should learn, that if you smoke your chances of death increase. We shouldn't give them false hope to enable them to continue their destructive behavior. To the voucher person. Don't blame Strickland. Blame the republicans who created an unfair program so they could use tax payers dollars to send more kids to for-profit and religious based schools. They had no interest in helping you kid either.

anti-smoking campaigns consisted mostly of multi-million dollar consulting contracts to friends who had been term limited or lost their jobs in Cbus. Most produced almost nothing in the way of stop smoking campaigns. The rest of the money was used to fill other budget gaps for expenses not related to smoking. Dems nearly stooped as low by allocating all future funds for the education budget, leaving nothing for stop smoking campaigns or for cancer related programs. I'm assuming when the time comes, education folks won't mind when cancer folks tap into their funds. IOW, just because you can do it doesn't mean its right. Most other states have wisely used some of their tobacco funds to supplement programs to prevent or reduce the cancer burden in their states. Ohio remains steadfastly ignorant and regressive on cancer control, that's why it ranks as one of the worst states in the US for cancer mortality, even though cancer incidence here is about average. Even sadder is the way Ohio leaders exploit low income and uninsured cancer patients who naively help them raise billions for research at Ohio's universities and cancer centers, yet do nothing to help them pay for health care. If a cure for cancer were found tomorrow, Ohio would still see about 1/3 of cancer patients die due to lack of health care. Most cancers aren't caused by tobacco and smart, compassionate Democrats don't blame cancer patients for their own illness. Nor do they exploit their illness to fund pet projects. So if you're an educator, just remember that every pay raise you get after taking control of the tobacco fund means the money could have been spent giving cancer treatment to an uninsured person.