Rural News Clips, Sept. 17, 2024
Hill GOP sets sights on scrapping drug price talks; The first year of Georgia’s Medicaid work requirement is mired in red tape
POLITICS AND ELECTIONS
The Washington Post
Abortion foes use government power to fight red-state ballot measures
Sept. 12, 2024
“An unprecedented number of abortion initiatives are on state ballots this November, nearly all seeking to protect reproductive rights, but opponents are trying to defeat them even before the start of voting through legal challenges, administrative maneuvers and, critics say, outright intimidation.”
“In part, the intensity reflects what’s at stake: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, every ballot measure put before voters has been approved, including in red states like Ohio. Those seeking to restrict abortion access have failed, even in conservative Kansas.”
Even rural conservatives have crossed the aisle to protect abortion access when it’s been on the ballot.
“Challenges escalated this summer after the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the secretary of state’s rejection of one ballot initiative because proponents had not followed rules related to paid canvassers.”
Many abortion opponents are mounting challenges based on election-law technicalities because they doubt they’d win in a fair vote, said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California at Davis and expert on the legal history of abortion.
Ziegler said antiabortion groups are experimenting with different ways to challenge ballot measures because they haven’t figured out “a winning recipe.”
Route Fifty
USPS issues could undermine mail-in ballots, letter warns
Sept. 17, 2024
“A bipartisan group of state and local elections officials are sounding the alarm about whether the U.S. Postal Service can handle the expected influx of absentee ballots in the coming weeks.”
“Leaders of the National Association of State Election Directors, the National Association of Secretaries of State and 29 local election official associations raised several ‘ongoing concerns’ in a letter to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy last week.”
“In it, the election officials wrote that Postal Service staff have received ‘inconsistent’ training on handling election mail, delivery times have been ‘exceptionally long’ and an increasing amount of mail has been returned as undeliverable.”
Votebeat Arizona
Error with tracking citizenship puts nearly 100,000 Arizona voters’ eligibility in limbo
Sept. 17, 2024
“The eligibility of nearly 100,000 registered voters in Arizona is up in the air because of an error in state systems uncovered just before the scheduled sending of mail ballots, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes announced on Tuesday.”
“The state incorrectly marked these voters when they registered to vote as already having provided documented proof of U.S. citizenship, when really, it’s unclear whether they have, Fontes said.”
“The error stems from the way the Motor Vehicle Division provides driver’s license information to the state’s voter registration system.”
“The voters affected by this particular error are people who first obtained their Arizona driver’s license before October 1996 and then were issued a duplicate replacement before registering to vote sometime after 2004.”
“Arizona’s unique laws have required proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in state and local elections since 2005. That means, if these voters have not provided the proof, they should be registered as what Arizona calls ‘federal only’ voters and be allowed to vote only for president and Congress.”
Idaho Capital Sun
Commentary: Idaho women have outlet for Harris-Walz supporters
Sept. 17, 2024
An online group called Idaho Women for Harris-Walz has attracted some 10,000 members in recent months. About 4,000 are rural.
Many members are registered Republicans and independents.
Reproductive rights are a main source of common ground among members.
Betty Richardson, a former U.S. attorney and Democratic congressional candidate, founded the group along with Louise Seeley.
“The group, which has ‘sister’ organizations throughout the country, has adopted Nevada, one of the battleground states that will decide the election.”
“And there are forces in the Gem State who are available to send text messages, make phone calls, write postcards and knock on doors.”
“Richardson and Seeley say the group is available to help in other states as well.”
Ohio Capital Journal
Amid ongoing threats, Ohio GOP US Senate candidate calls for deporting Springfield legal immigrants
Sept. 17, 2024
“Terroristic threats continued against Springfield officials and public buildings over the weekend and into Monday. In the midst of them, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno called for the protected status of legal Haitian migrants in Springfield to be revoked and for them to be deported back to their violence-riven country.”
“The city in southwestern Ohio has been the center of a national political firestorm after former president Donald Trump in last Tuesday’s debate repeated a debunked claim that Haitian immigrants who have flocked to the community over the past five years were stealing neighbors’ pets and eating them.”
“Other GOP officials, including Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, have amplified rumors that Black immigrants to Springfield have been killing and eating geese.”
“The claim has been debunked by public safety officials, Gov. Mike DeWine, and even one of the first people to post it on Facebook.”
“Springfield’s health and education infrastructure has been strained as 12,000 to 15,000 Haitians fleeing chaos in their country have moved over the past five years to what had been a shrinking community. A big reason was the availability of warehouse and manufacturing jobs.”
“The strains and the influx of immigrants of color has sparked a wave of hatred. An armed neo-Nazi group marched through the city last month.”
BOOK BANS
Chalkbeat Tennessee
Under Tennessee’s stricter school library law, some books quietly disappear
Sept. 17, 2024
“In Tennessee, [a wave of library book purges] started under Gov. Bill Lee’s 2022 school library law requiring periodic reviews of catalogs to ensure materials are appropriate for the ages and maturity levels of the students who can access them.”
“Librarians and teachers had to publish their inventories of book collections online for parents to view. Early removals included books about marginalized groups, including people who identify as LGBTQ+, and descriptions of slavery and racial discrimination throughout U.S. history.
“This spring, scrutiny escalated. Republican lawmakers added a definition of what’s ‘suitable’ and, based on the state’s obscenity law, prohibited any material that ‘in whole or in part contains descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse.’”
“In the absence of state guidance on how to interpret the changes — What constitutes excess violence, for instance? Are photographs of nude statues allowed? What about Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet”? — [educators in many districts] are quietly culling their shelves of certain books.”
“A recent survey of members of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians found that more than 1,100 titles have been removed under the changes, with more under review. One librarian anonymously reported pulling 300 titles at a single school since the start of the academic year.”
DROUGHT
Inside Climate News
Another Midwest Drought Is Causing Transportation Headaches on the Mississippi River
Sept. 13, 2024
“Abnormally dry conditions have caused low water levels that disrupt barge transports carrying fuel and grain. Climatologists say it could be part of a larger trend.”
This is how a lot of American farmers ship their products to be sold, so a drought will hurt their bottom lines. This happened a few years ago.
GROCERIES
Politico
What presidents can and can't do to lower grocery prices
Sept. 13, 2024
“A majority of U.S. consumers believe elected officials, of one party or the other, can help lower their grocery bills — an expectation that could help swing the election, given how important inflation is to likely voters in 2024.”
“The truth is likely to disappoint them. Despite what both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are promising on the campaign trail, the next leader of the free world has limited options to lower food costs in the speedy or widespread way many voters might hope.”
“Politico took a look at some of the policies Biden, Harris and Trump have used, or said they plan to use, to address high food prices and the limitations of each.”
The policies discussed are: antitrust enforcement, expanding domestic energy supply, subverting the “Big Four” meatpackers that have cornered the market, and using the bully pulpit.
HEALTH CARE
Alabama.com
Rural Alabama loses even more doctors: ‘I cannot be the pediatrician for every child’
Sept. 16, 2024
“It’s getting harder to find a pediatrician in rural Alabama, as over a third of the state’s counties don’t have a single pediatric practice.”
“That’s despite Alabama adding nearly 150 pediatricians since 2022. Most of those physicians are flocking to the state’s largest metropolitan areas in Baldwin, Madison and Jefferson counties.”
“Pediatricians in rural communities have struggled to keep their doors open. The price of rent, utilities and supplies have gone up, while the rate they’re paid by Alabama Medicaid has remained the same for decades.”
“A bill to increase a tax credit for rural doctors from $5,000 to $10,000 died in the House during this year’s legislative session after failing to advance through committee for a vote.”
“Many of the counties in the coverage gap are in the Black Belt region.”
“Alabama is one of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid for people with low incomes.”
Alabama Reflector
Alabama rural hospitals caught in ‘vicious cycle’ on Medicare wage index
Sept. 17, 2024
“Rural hospitals across Alabama have been caught in a cycle of financial instability, partly driven by the state’s low Medicare reimbursement wage index. This issue … is an outdated model that has overwhelmed hospitals for decades, [and] threatens the survival of health care facilities in some of the state’s most underserved regions.”
“The Medicare wage index, a complex formula used by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), adjusts hospital payments based on the local cost of labor.”
“Its implementation has had severe consequences for Alabama, a state with historically lower wages and economic activity compared to more urban states like California and Massachusetts.”
MENTAL HEALTH
Stat
What pharma companies and insurers think about Medicare’s plan to cover digital treatments
Sept. 17, 2024
“In July, Medicare proposed to start paying for some mental health apps, in a move applauded by the developers of those treatments after years of struggling to find adoption among clinicians and patients.”
“Some of the largest pharma and health care companies in the country, like Pfizer and CVS Health, weighed in on the proposal during the comment period, arguing for modifications that suit their vision for how digital treatments ought to be valued.”
“The comments, especially from the large pharmaceutical companies and insurers, underscore how Medicare’s decisions could help define how the health care system pays for emerging technologies.”
Mental health apps could potentially help rural residents with less access to traditional providers, but that would depend on broadband quality.
Minnesota Reformer
Decades of national suicide prevention policies haven’t slowed the deaths
Sept. 18, 2024
“During the past two decades federal officials have launched three national suicide prevention strategies, including one announced in April.” The first two haven’t worked and the jury’s out on the third.
“The first strategy, announced in 2001, focused on addressing risk factors for suicide and leaned on a few common interventions.”
“The next strategy called for developing and implementing standardized protocols to identify and treat people at risk for suicide with follow-up care and the support needed to continue treatment.”
“The latest strategy builds on previous ones and includes a federal action plan calling for implementation of 200 measures over the next three years, including prioritizing populations disproportionately affected by suicide, such as Black youth and Native Americans and Alaska Natives.”
“Despite those evolving strategies, from 2001 through 2021 suicide rates increased most years.”
“In the past two decades, suicide rates in rural states such as Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming have been about double those in urban areas.”
“Despite those persistently disappointing numbers, mental health experts contend the national strategies aren’t the problem. Instead, they argue, the policies — for many reasons — simply aren’t being funded, adopted, and used. That slow uptake was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a broad, negative impact on mental health.”
POLLUTION
The Washington Post
High toxin levels are illegal in public water. But not for Americans using private wells.
Sept. 10, 2024
“The EPA regulates the amount of toxins allowed in public drinking water to keep people safe, establishing the maximum levels for dozens of contaminants, requiring utilities to conduct regular testing and imposing consequences on those that break the law by failing to remove toxins.
“But the agency doesn’t regulate the drinking water of the more than 1 in 10 people who get their water from their own private wells.”
An estimated 43 million Americans get their water from private wells, mostly in rural areas.
“In lieu of any national laws, some states and municipalities across the country have issued their own regulations,” according to a study. “Twenty-three states have adopted requirements for water quality testing of private wells. But those requirements vary widely in scope, and only 10 states have laws that require notifying well owners about a potential contamination.”
“Though the proportion of people using private wells has declined, the number of wells has increased overall with the growth of the general population — and the levels and pervasiveness of some contaminants in those wells are increasing.”
“Some studies have found that they have become more contaminated as a result of climate change and the expanding use of chemicals in agriculture that pollute natural water sources.”
The Associated Press
A remote tribe is reeling from widespread illness and cancer. What role did the US government play?
Sept. 9, 2024
“There’s a long legacy of contamination across Indian Country, ranging from uranium tailings in the Southwest to solvents dumped at a military installation in Alaska and pesticides used on the North Dakota plains. Health risks and other critical information are often concealed from Native American communities until years, sometimes decades, after the damage is done.”
The article centers on the remote Duck Valley reservation straddling Nevada and Ihado, where toxic contaminants in the soil and water have sickened and killed people for decades.
Residents have suspected that the leaks came from (now gone) U.S. government maintenance building that stored fuel and herbicides.
Butin a 1997 document, a Bureau of Indian Affairs “employee recalled clearing foliage in the irrigation canals at least 20 years earlier, when he sprayed at least one of the herbicides — but possibly both — that make up Agent Orange. The EPA banned one of those chemicals in 1979 because of its cancer risks.”
“A BIA official told the EPA and tribal leaders that it was long believed the herbicides were used for weed control along certain roads — not the canals — before rediscovering the document.”
Tribes were unaware of any of this. Most “live along the canals, swam in them, used the water to farm on the edges, and gathered branches from surrounding willow trees to fashion cradleboards and roast marshmallows.”
POSTAL SERVICE
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
NRECA Asks Postal Service to Reconsider Proposed Curbs on Rural Mail Service
Sept. 16, 2024
“NRECA is asking the U.S. Postal Service to reconsider its proposal to curb evening mail service in rural areas, saying the plan would have a ‘significant and deleterious impact on America’s electric cooperatives.’”
“Under the plan, the USPS ‘is walking away from its universal service obligation to rural America,’ NRECA Regulatory Affairs Director Stephanie Crawford said in a Sept. 12 letter to the Postal Service. ‘This is simply unacceptable.’”
“The Aug. 22 proposal is part of a broader USPS effort to cut billions of dollars in annual costs and make the mail carrier’s network more efficient.”
“Among other things, the plan would eliminate evening mail pickup in rural and remote areas and could slow mail service for areas that are more than 50 miles from a large USPS regional processing facility, adding another day of delivery time to mostly first-class mail.”
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Nebraska Examiner
Nebraska, other attorneys general challenge California regulation on big trucks
Sept. 16, 2024
“Nebraska and 23 other Republican-led states asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday to block a push by Democratic-led California to require more trucks used for transporting goods to reduce carbon emissions.”
“Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, who led the effort, argued in a letter that California is overstepping its authority and risks harming commerce beyond its borders.”
“He and the other attorneys general wrote that forcing a shift from diesel fuel to electric energy could lead to higher prices for food, fuel and more consumer goods.”
“The letter was signed by leaders in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.”
“Hilgers, like many of his farm-state peers, argued in the letter that biofuels risk being harmed. Rural elected officials have argued that requiring electric vehicles doesn’t work in their regions because they lack the charging infrastructure.”
“The AGs also argued rural states would be disproportionately affected by the resulting higher costs for traditional trucks and trucking, which they say would follow a zero-emissions mandate.”
SAFETY NET PROGRAMS
Axios
Hill GOP sets sights on scrapping drug price talks
Sept. 17, 2024
“The Trump campaign's populist rhetoric on drug pricing is colliding with more traditional GOP concerns in Congress about heavy-handed government squelching pharmaceutical innovation.”
“Multiple high-ranking Republicans told Axios they want to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare drug price negotiations next year if they prevail in the elections.”
But there’s no consensus on what they would replace the law with. That “could mean a long, grinding health care debate with echoes of the failed 2017 Affordable Care Act repeal-replace fight.”
“The law requires the next president to negotiate prices for some drugs, after the first round of talks yielded agreements to lower the list prices of 10 widely used drugs this year.”
“Future administrations won't be able to dismantle or water down the IRA without Congress' help. It's possible that Republicans could diverge, with Trump focused on "gutting" the IRA's climate and energy provisions while Republican lawmakers aim for the drug talks.”
Kaiser Health News
The First Year of Georgia’s Medicaid Work Requirement Is Mired in Red Tape
Sept. 13, 2024
Last summer, Georgia enacted the nation’s only program that requires most people to work, volunteer or go to school to receive Medicaid. So far very few have signed up, mostly because of confusing guidelines, red tape, and problems with accessibility.
“The Georgia Pathways to Coverage program shows the hurdles ahead for states looking to follow its lead. Georgia’s GOP leaders have spent millions of dollars to launch Pathways. By July 29, nearly 4,500 people had enrolled.
“That’s well short of the state’s own goal of more than 25,000 in its first year, according to its application to the federal government, and a fraction of the 359,000 who might have been eligible had Georgia simply expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, as 40 other states did.”
“The plan has cost more than $40 million in state and federal tax dollars through June, with nearly 80% going toward administration and consulting fees rather than paying for medical care.”
“So far, the pricey endeavor has forced participants to navigate bureaucratic hurdles rather than support employment. The state would not confirm whether it could even verify if people in the program are working.”
Research shows that the red tape disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic people. Historically, the same kind of red tape has hurt rural people too: They’re required to work or go to school for 80 hours a month, but there are fewer opportunities for either in rural areas, and often more hurdles to participate, such as transportation costs and good internet connection.
TOURISM
The Daily Yonder
Rural New England Counts on Foliage Tourism, but the Future of Fall Colors Is Uncertain
Sept. 17, 2024
“Leaves are already turning in northern New England, signaling that the region’s famed foliage season – estimated by the U.S. Forest Service to bring in $8 billion in tourism revenue annually – is underway.”
“This benefits the rural communities that count on booming business in the autumn.”
This year, New England “can expect to see the return of vibrant reds that have been dull in recent years”
But because of climate change, “scientists warn that dull colors and delays to the season could become increasingly common.”