IS IT TRUE OCTOBER 5, 2016

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IS IT TRUE there is a nasty rumor going around that the State isn’t going to fund the Ivy Tech building adjacent to the new downtown IU Medical School?  … a State budget sub-committee is meeting this morning and their agenda doesn’t have anything about the funding of Ivy Tech expanding to the  IU Medical School-Evansville  in 2017?

IS IT TRUE its important that the State includes Ivy Tech students in the new IU Medical School plans because it would greatly enhance the students enrollment at that facility to around 1,500 Medical students?

IS IT TRUE its time for the backers of the Medical School to start calling Indianapolis to inquire why the Ivy Tech expansion plans to located in the IU Medical Center complex in Evansville wasn’t included in todays State budget sub-committee is meeting.

IS IT TRUE Mayor Winnecke Administration and Council leadership (McGinn, Mosby and Weaver) are finally realizing that the “Health Care Chickens Have Come Home To Roost”?   …it’s  common knowledge that they have known that in 2016, and 2017 the City Employee Health care fund will have major deficit shortfalls?

IS IT TRUE we hearing that the Mayor is weighing his options and considering holding off on making any announcement concerning any possible adjustments to the City Employees Health care agreement until Monday? …we are told this could be a stall tactic to deter the Fire and Police membership from staging a peaceful protesting at Westside Nut Club Fall Festival?

IS IT TRUE Mayor Winnecke and the City Council leadership (McGinn, Mosby and Weaver) are telling people that they have the votes to reduce our Homestead Tax Credits by 2%? …we hope you realize that when they do that everyone living in Vanderburgh County property taxes shall go up additional 2%?

IS IT TRUE that the City of Evansville Personnel Director George Fithin and City Controller Russ Lloyd Jr should  had known about the impending City’s employees Health Care increases?    ..they should have urged the Mayor to sit aside reserves to address the obvious looming  Employee  Health Care increases?

IS IT TRUE many readers are asking why the City of Evansville are having a major shortfall in the premium in the Employee Healthcare cost but the County employees healthcare rate are staying the same for 2017?  …the only answer we can give is that the County Healthcare program isn’t self insured and the County Council used sound business practices in administrating the program?  …on the other hand the City is self insured and has used the “ole political meat ax approach” in administrating their employee Healthcare program?

IS IT TRUE that at the stroke of midnights on December 31,2017 all Healthcare plans in existence nation wide established after March 10, 2010 will terminate and the full provisions of Obamacare will be mandated for all group plans will be the law of the land?

IS IT TRUE that experts in the Healthcare industry have predicted costs in most of the group health care plan will skyrocket as much as 80%?   …that the City’s self insured  Healthcare plan will probably not experience the projected 80% increase but will have significant increases in costs?

IS IT TRUE we are extremely disappointed in the Winnecke’s administration for not disclosing to our city employees in advance that at midnight  on December 31, 2017 they shall be facing major increases in their Healthcare premiums?

IS IT TRUE if City Council members have true love for members of the Police and Fire Departments they should step up and forfeit their own health care coverage? …it’s  time that Council step up lead by example?

FOOT NOTES: Todays READERS POLL question is: Are you getting sick and tired of our elected and appointed City officials playing political games with our hard earn tax dollars?

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32 COMMENTS

  1. Just think if Winnecke had the county’s money, through “Consolidation” to spend?

  2. How can a vote by the city council increase taxes on property outside the city? Isn’t that taxation without representation?

    • If this is what you are basing your question on:

      “IS IT TRUE Mayor Winnecke and the City Council leadership (McGinn, Mosby and Weaver) are telling people that they have the votes to reduce our Homestead Tax Credits by 2%? …we hope you realize that when they do that everyone living in Vanderburgh County property taxes shall go up additional 2%?”

      Relax, it is incorrect. In fact non-city residents will still get their 2% unless the County Commissioners and the County Council vote to take it away from them.

    • My thoughts exactly! And yet we voted down Vandigov many times already. Yet the city council still has a negative effect on those of us who moved out of the city and into the outskirts but still inside Vanderburgh County. You can bet that the weasels are eyeballing all that money sitting out there in the country outside the city limits and licking their chops at the change to get their hands on all that extra tax revenue to waste on silly penguin exhibits and dog parks.

  3. The homestead is voted on by city council, county and the town of Darmstadt. But the votes are weighted such that the city controls the majority. Bad deal but probably isn’t taxation without representation because it’s not actually a tax increase but rather a reduction of a credit. Still a bad deal, but it is legal

      • I believe that of all of the politicians who got together in 2009 in the secret meeting to take away the Homestead Tax Credit, that only one is still and elected official.

        Mayor Winnecke called that meeting at the request of former Mayor Weinzapfel. Go down the list of people in the room. Every other one had their political careers ended except for Mayor Winnecke.

        I will admit that the 2009 meeting was the inspiration that lead me to coin the term SNEGAL.

    • Nevertheless, our taxes will increase and the folks in the county can do anything about it, i.e. vote the bastards out. Just wait until the minion McGinn proposes the max increase in the Local Income Tax from 1% to 2.5% and the City Council has 65% of the votes to do so. Hey, County residents better keep your arms and legs inside this moving vehicle.

    • Don’t give me that BS. A reduction of an credit is still a GD tax. Period end of story. Don’t try to spin my money out of my back pocket. SOB greedy SOB’s. If this is how the State Laws work then the system is RIGGED as Donald John Trump would say. It’s rigged I tell you! Rigged!

      People need to get up off their fat asses and go out and vote and stop this nonsense. We need to elect some good people that will watch out for us not steal us blind. But who are these good people? That is the hard part. We don’t always get to choose who’s running for the offices. The party’s do that. And the only way to change the Parties is from the inside. Good luck with that. That’s like someone trying to take over Al Capone’s leadership with a rubber band. People are really powerless to get things changed around her or In Indianapolis. And Washington DC for that matter.

      Some people may think that by voting for an outsider they can effect greater change but they need to make sure who that outsider is before they vote for him. And believe me Donald John Trump is not stupid. He’s out for DJT not you and not me. He’s in this for himself. He thinks it smart for us to pay taxes and him to avoid paying his fair share of Federal Income taxes for the last 20 years. If you buy that then you are dumber that a rock.

  4. The chickens have come home to roost for both the City Administration AND the city employees.

  5. I think the editor was incorrect concerning the Midnight Dec 31, 2017. All health care plans that existed before not after March 10, 2010 which includes the City of Evansville will be terminated, i.e. must comply with all aspects of Obamacare and that my friends will drive cost through the roof. If the police and fire are unhappy now, they must have not idea what’s in store for him during the next budget cycle.

    • NEW FLASH: Humana and United Health Care just sent notices out to it’s agents that starting in 2017, no commissions will be paid on group health care plans with under 50 employees. Wow!!! Over 70% of the group plans will be affected. Most all are small businesses. Predictions are that small businesses, i.e. employees under 50 will drop those plans and increase wages directing their employees to the exchanges. (cattle cars). Now, I see why Bill Clinton just said the other day, “Obamacare is the craziest thing he has ever seen” and now has tried to walk it back ..

    • So Joe what do you propose they do to lower health care costs. Single Payer insurance. A friend of mine think that we should do away with insurance all together. IE eliminate the middle man to lower costs. I think that’s crazy too. But something has to be done to help the people get medical coverage. We can’t let them all just die and suffer from lack of medical care for lack of funds to pay for the medical care.

      • There are several things including what you mentioned. I would start with allowing insurance companies to do business across state borders. There are currently 50 state regulators presiding over what are often legislated monopolies. Eliminating competition has always increased costs whether it is by restraining interstate commerce or by granting protected territories. My second move would be to allow us to buy our prescriptions online from foreign pharmacies. Third, put granny on the plane for procedures that cost an unreasonable amount. Why pay $50k for a hip replacement here when you can get it in Spain for $8,000.

        On single payer, that should be a government based option. The problem with it is that it eliminates all competition and will thus inhibit innovation. If you like the VA, you will love single payer. The government hasn’t proven itself capable of designing or running a large health plan. It is government failure that caused President Clinton to say what he said. Giving a failure a larger role and more responsibility seldom works out well.

        • I agree with you that completion breeds innovation more than anything else. And it also should reduce prices as it does in most other business here. Somehow the medical bills such as $50 for a hip replacement seems excessive.

          I wonder how other countries such as Canada do this? They provide everyone with health care for free. I’m not sure what the VA is actually like. I hear horror stories about it at time so I see what you are saying about single payer.

          • Canada does not provide free healthcare. No place does. The taxes collected pay for the healthcare. The United States does the same thing with public infrastructure like highways. We don’t pay a toll to drive on our highways, but we do pay for our use in out taxes.

            Many of the other countries are getting a free ride on American R&D. It is infuriating to learn about drugs that are $600 here that are way less elsewhere. It just adds insult to injury to be forbidden from buying these products outside the country.

            As for the expensive operations part of that is the wage discrepancy between the US and other countries. Nurses here average about $70k but in Spain they are less than half of that. There is an even larger discrepancy with doctors wages.

            Can you imagine what would happen to the price of real estate if nurses and doctors had their pay cut by 70%. Houses and cars would be repossessed in mass. We can’t have it both ways. Why do you think we have so many foreign doctors here? They are here for a better job and a better life. That comes with a cost.

            I do think we need to offshore some procedures though. In the case of Medicare paying $50,000 for something that could be done in Spain for $8,000 is as absurd as the military paying $700 for a hammer.

            That brings me to my last point. The government is terribly inefficient. Would you put healthcare in the hands of the idiots that pay $700 for hammers and over a billion for a plane that doesn’t fly?

          • I have a close friend who is a British citizen and I have had long conversations with him concerning national health care. He indicates that Britain’s health care system is near bankruptcy and if you need to go to the Emergency room on weekends, your chances of survival are slim. Once we go to the free beer and bigger mugs approach to health care, be assured many will not survive.

  7. Bill Clinton yesterday on the ACA:

    “Look, the Affordable Health Care Act did a world of good, and the 50-something efforts to repeal it that the Republicans have staged were a terrible mistake,” Clinton said at a rally in Athens, Ohio. “We, for the first time in our history, at least are providing insurance to more than 90% of our people.”

    “But there is a group of people — mostly small business owners and employees — who make just a little too much money to qualify for Medicaid expansion or for the tax incentives who can’t get affordable health insurance premiums in a lot of places. And the reason is they’re not in big pools,” Clinton said. “So they have no bargaining power.”

    • Those folks need to form a big pool. For years, there have been groups that are formed for their common good – Farm Bureau, for example – that have made health insurance available to their members at a group rate.

      • Small states don’t have sufficient populations to constitute a big pool. Allowing insurance to be sold across state lines is the only thing that will allow small states to compete from a big pool.

        • You are absolutely correct. Over twenty years ago, I had a conversation with Evan Byah and Dick Lugar and suggested that health insurance should be obtainable across state lines. Guess what, they both said that they would not be in favor. Why? maybe the insurance companies were in their hip pocket. No competition means higher premiums and higher executive compensation packages . .

  13. the good people of the great state of Indiana is and should be without a doubt very proud of Mr. Pence………………………..Mr. Trump Law And Order 2016 and beyond………

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