Featured Commentary category, Page 112
Sen. Pam Iovino: Protecting health care a state legislative priority
The constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is once again on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court. Based on the comments from justices during arguments heard on Tuesday, it appears that the court will not strike down the law in its entirety. Yet there still remains significant uncertainty...
Robert T. Smith: The demise of Pa. wildlife management
Irreconcilable differences have existed for some time between Pennsylvania’s hunters and the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC). Due to socioeconomic conditions around the early to mid-1900s, there existed for a time a unique habitat situation (e.g., re-growth of logged areas, abandonment of small farms, etc.) that led to an abundance of...
Javier Miyares and Jim Rosapepe: Virtual learning was better option for some even before pandemic
As educators are well into the school year, the national debate about the efficacy of online learning continues. Now, though, the stakes are higher. As the economy emerges from the current health crisis, an educated and motivated workforce will be needed to fuel its recovery. Education is not one-size-fits-all, and...
Raghu Sangwan: Analyses offer look into voters’ minds
As Americans went to bed Tuesday night, many wondered if they would wake up to a new president, much like they did four years ago. But by 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN’s Don Lemon put it best: “If anyone tells you they know, they don’t.” At that time several so-called...
Chad Forcey: Community solar offers bright spot of revenue opportunity
With Pennsylvania staring down a pandemic- induced $4.5 billion budget deficit, and just a few short weeks before our current budget expires on Nov. 30, the commonwealth is short on options. Without new revenues, Harrisburg lawmakers will need to enact painful cuts that will make our covid-19 recovery longer and...
Brandon Arnold: Trump drug rebate gambit rests on shaky legal authority
$7.9 billion might not seem like much money when measured against the trillions of dollars the federal government has spent in response to covid-19 — and the trillions more it might soon spend. But President Trump has a $7.9 billion drug rebate proposal that almost certainly violates his administration’s authority...
Mark Hendrickson: Why fracking is a big issue
The “paradox of prosperity” is the strange tendency of many people who have benefited from economic advances to denounce and vilify the source of their prosperity, a sort of “bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you” phenomenon. One example of this syndrome is the perplexing (some would say “perverse”) antipathy that many Americans have toward fossil...
Terri Shields: Shuttle service would bring opportunities to Hazelwood
The City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) conducted a public Zoom meeting Oct. 21 on the proposed Mon-Oakland shuttle service. The new service, using electric vehicles, would connect Oakland with parts of Greenfield and Hazelwood, such as development at the Hazelwood Green site. The majority of the...
Sheldon Jacobson: Time for Big Ten to lead
The University of Wisconsin football team announced 12 covid-19 infections, including head coach Paul Chryst, after their rout of the University of Illinois Oct. 23. Although no one will likely know the exact details of what transpired, there are several issues that come forward from this sequence of events that...
Nancy Patton Mills: Biden has a better plan for America
Families in Southwestern Pennsylvania and across the country are faced with crisis after crisis. There’s a public health crisis — covid-19 has taken the lives of more than 8,700 of our fellow Pennsylvanians, and is only getting worse. There’s an economic crisis — one that predates the pandemic, but has...
Keith Rothfus: Trump has earned your vote
From the day President Trump announced his candidacy, Pennsylvania has been on the forefront of his mind. The forgotten men and women of Pennsylvania have been forgotten no more under Trump’s leadership. From leading an unprecedented response to covid-19, to better trade deals like the USMCA for Pennsylvania workers, to...
Steven Albert: Policies to promote ‘herd immunity’ will not achieve population health (or immunity)
In the current covid-19 pandemic, the first goal is to get control of the virus. This can be achieved with masks, handwashing and limiting contact with others. When these measures are implemented effectively, people can get back to work and school. Once spread is contained, smaller outbreaks can be controlled...
Dr. Ralph Miranda: Vote your values
A couple weeks ago I was speaking with a 21-year-old, fairly new voter who indicated she was voting to reelect the president because he “aligned with her values.” She quickly ended the phone conversation because dinner with her parents was at hand. I accepted her right to choose her own...
Elizabeth Stelle: Despite pandemic challenges, health care improvements are underway
We didn’t need a global pandemic to remind us that our health care system is broken and unaffordable. Countless Pennsylvanians have avoided a doctor visit for fear of unexpected bills. Many have gone months, or even years, without the ability to afford an insurance plan. And some have turned down...
Drs. Terence Dermody and Mark Gladwin: On covid-19, we need to keep at it
The covid-19 pandemic continues to rage, with rates of new infections increasing in many parts of the country, including in Western Pennsylvania. In Allegheny County alone, almost 15,000 people, or just over 1.2% of the county’s population, have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes covid-19, and over 400...
Sucha Singh: Healing as we remember Tree of Life
I have lived in Pittsburgh for 28 years. During that time, I’ve witnessed our city remolded and refined to adjust for the growth within diverse neighborhoods and cherished the distinctiveness of each culture. Understanding our city’s many ethnicities and an inclusive atmosphere is analogous to the confluence of the Allegheny...
Francis Adams: Mail-in ballots are lifesaving to many voters
On June 16, 1964, three young men traveled from New York City to Mississippi to register African Americans to vote. Within a week, they were dead. I was 15 when these men — James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman — were murdered. I understood how voter suppression in the...
Jim Busch: Bigotry can be hard to maintain
The news today is full of stories about white supremacy groups like the Proud Boys and the Ku Klux Klan. These groups are increasingly common as racial tensions mount. I detest these groups and their evil ideology, but I can understand them because I am descended from a long line...
Kim Anderson: Reducing methane is morally right
“Honey, should we fix the natural gas leaks in our home?” “No, sweetheart, we just won’t light any matches and put up signs saying, NO SMOKING ALLOWED.” Does this conversation between spouses sound like a responsible course of action? This is exactly the course of action that our commonwealth has...
Sens. Kristin Phillips-Hill and Scott Hutchinson: Could a 20-year state contract sink efforts to close Pennsylvania’s digital divide?
In 2019, the commonwealth entered into a 20-year contract with an Ohio-based company to help expand access to broadband in underserved areas of Pennsylvania. Although this contract was originally billed as a way to help deploy high-speed internet throughout the state, it now appears that this contract is more of...
Graham Godwin: 2020’s polls aren’t 2016’s polls
The 2016 presidential contest made some people skeptical of polling. But this is perhaps more of the situation where one remembers the emotion more than the facts. Yes, there were a lot of entities doing a lot of polling that year, and some of it was just bad. That’s what...
Jeanne Allen: Parents should have power on education
For years, measures like the Nation’s Report Card have assessed educational opportunity in America. Long story short: Our scores are abysmal, and our children are falling further and further behind both national and international norms. Now enter covid-19. The pandemic has put this ugly truth on display for all to...
Dr. Natalie Gentile: Pennsylvanians deserve affordable, accessible access to primary care physicians
Dozens of national health care leaders recently called upon Congress to expand patients’ options for personalized, high-quality health care. One of the most important measures included in the recommendations was greater support for direct primary care (DPC), a growing health care model that replaces the fee-for-service insurance model of care...
Aaron Carroll: Let kids have Halloween
Of course we want everyone, including children, to be safe during the pandemic. We canceled school in the spring, camps in the summer, vacations, sleepovers and more. My daughter turned 14 in June, and her friends drove by in cars, wishing her happy birthday while she waved from the lawn....
John Sparks: Amy Coney Barrett and the Purdue sexual assault case
Liberal/progressive organizations like Public Justice are portraying President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, as soft on and complicit with campus sexual abusers. Public Justice has zeroed in on decision written by Barrett for a three-judge panel a 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case, Doe v....
