health

Will Pennsylvania Finally Legalize Cannabis?

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Back in the Spring, the PA House of Representatives passed House Bill 1200. It passed on a 102-101, party line vote. The PA Senate Law and Justice Committee then voted the bill down 3-7, with one member absent. Reportedly there is a new bill though that might just pass. Senate Chairman Daniel Laughlin is reportedly on board and has the support of all four Democrats on his committee. Reportedly there is a mirror bill sitting in the House that has bi-partisan sponsorship. If Senator Laughlin’s bill moves out of the committee and makes it to the State Senate floor, there is at least a decent chance that it will pass there. Then the House could consider the mirror bill and possibly advance this to either the Governor’s desk or a conference committee to iron out any differences.

I don’t have the Laughlin bill’s text, but HB 1200 stated that it would do the following:

An Act providing for the regulation and treatment of cannabis, for exemption from criminal or civil penalties, for effect on cannabis convictions and expungements and for membership and duties of the Liquor Control Board; establishing Pennsylvania Cannabis Stores; providing for social and economic equity, for license, permit or other authorization, for packaging, labeling, advertising and testing, for recordkeeping and inspection, for prohibitions and penalties and for tax and tax administration; establishing the Cannabis Revenue Fund, the Communities Reimagined and Reinvestment Restricted Account and the Substance Use Disorder Prevention, Treatment and Education Restricted Account; providing for the issuance of bonds; imposing duties on the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Revenue; and making repeals.

We are long, long past time to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana. Everyone from high school kids to retirees uses marijuana. New Jersey and New York legalized it and have stores literally sitting on our borders. Our citizens are going into their states and buying marijuana, and the tax dollars on the sale are going to their public education systems, to help their senior citizens, and to replace their roads and bridges. We should be getting a piece of that pie for ourselves.

Reportedly, Mike Tyson is out in Harrisburg lobbying the State Senate for the bill. It could pass the State Senate as soon as this week. Governor Shapiro has been supportive of legalization and the things we could do with that money. It’s time for Harrisburg to act.

Happy Shut Down Day

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

The government is shut down. Good. The truth is that the Republicans are in the majority in both houses of Congress. They also hold the White House. If they want to fund this government, they should figure out a way. What is this government doing that someone who disagrees with Donald Trump should want to continue?

This fight is not about illegal immigrants getting health care from the government. That is illegal now, and does not happen on any meaningful level. Medicare and Medicaid have plenty of safe guards now against giving a policy to non-citizens. If you wanted to make sure those programs and the VA and ACA had literal zero illegal immigrants on policies, you’d give them more money, not less, so they could enforce it better. This is all just excuses from Donald Trump.

This fight is about the ACA and affordable health care in America. Cutting subsidies for premiums under the ACA simply will raise the amount of money people pay for a plan. If premiums are higher, less people will buy plans. Because less people are buying, plans will become more expensive people who buy plans. It’s a nasty cycle, and the reason most of the 20 million or so on “Obamacare” plans didn’t just buy an insurance plan before. The whole market is cheaper with more people on it. With less people insured, you get more people showing up at hospitals and clinics and receiving care they will never pay for. The hospitals and clinics then make up that money by charging insurers more for the people they are covering. Simply put, health care is cheaper on the micro (household) level with more people insured than less. Cutting subsidies to the ACA is a rate hike even for people like me, who don’t accept the subsidy.

Aside from the multitude of horrific things the current government is doing that Democrats should have no interest in paying for, there’s no point in screwing up the health care market because you don’t like the President who designed it. Keep the government shut down. If the Republicans want to fund it, let them figure it out. If they want Democrats to help, they can cave on health insurance premiums. Otherwise there is no harm in shutting it down and keeping it down. Democrats were voted out, we’re under no obligation to help them.