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10.09.2009 9:01 pm

Time for Gov. Nixon to lead on health care

For a guy who focused so relentlessly on health care as a candidate, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has been remarkably quiet of late.
At a time when health care dominates the national debate, Mr. Nixon is one of just six Democratic…

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09.29.2009 9:00 pm

Missouri families left behind by a fast-changing economy

Matson's View

Matson

Poverty is on the rise in Missouri. Over the past nine years, the state’s poverty rate has grown at more than double the national average.
The change has disproportionately affected whites. Poverty remains significantly higher among African-Americans. But the poverty rate grew fastest…

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07.07.2009 4:16 pm

Pope speaks out on economic imbalances

Thomas J. Reese writes in the Washington Post about the pope’s message on the economy:

Pope Benedict’s long awaited encyclical calls for a radical rethinking of economics so that it is guided not simply by profits but by “an ethics which is people-centered.”

“Profit…

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06.26.2009 3:33 pm

Area woman named worst person in the world

Cynthia Davis enjoying what surely is a rare restaurant meal.

Cynthia Davis enjoying what surely is a rare restaurant meal (2001 Post-Dispatch photo by David Carson).

Thanks, in part, to a recent Post-Dispatch editorial, Missouri state Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-O’Fallon, was the subject of Keith Olbermann’s scorn this week on his…

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04.12.2009 9:00 pm

Expand Medicaid to cover the uninsured

Republican lawmakers in Missouri have a problem: They’d like to reduce the number of uninsured Missourians. But they don’t want to admit that their 2005 Medicaid cuts were a mistake — or hand Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon a political victory.
Mr.…

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12.03.2008 9:01 pm

Blood from a stone: Medicaid co-pays are bad health policy

Post-Dispatch file photoIn Missouri, you can live in poverty but still not be poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. Adults have to earn less than about 25 percent of the federal income poverty level — roughly $3,700 a year for a single…

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10.29.2008 12:05 pm

Taxing the poor in Missouri and Illinois

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Anti-poverty programs stir up controversy now and then.  Why, then, does no one get stirred up over the pro-poverty policies of states including Missouri and Illinois? These states tax the poor, making their poverty worse.

Of course, poor people have always…

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10.01.2008 9:01 pm

Thursday editorial: Show-me show time

Eleven months ago, when the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that Washington University would host the vice presidential debate this year, it was a little like being awarded the ArenaBowl instead of the Super Bowl. Indoor football’s championship game is a…

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09.16.2008 10:00 pm

MINK column: Enough about Palin and Biden

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Obama, McCain at 9/11 ceremonies

 After two weeks’ vacation and more than 1,700 Midwestern highway miles, I came home looking for some wisdom. I found it on the editorial page of Sunday’s Post-Dispatch — in a letter to the editor by Dorothy Anderson of Spanish Lake:
“I have…

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09.05.2008 9:00 pm

Sunday editorial: Re-writing the rules on charity care

cd_ls_forest_park_land_3_opt.jpgThe sticky issue of charity care — health care delivered by a hospital without the expectation of payment — got a lot of attention last week.

A circuit court judge in St. Louis, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and members of…

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09.04.2008 9:25 pm

Friday editorial: Orshansky’s list

mollie_opt.jpgIn 1963, Mollie Orshansky took a grocery list, performed some simple arithmetic, and immortalized herself in American economics. She became “Miss Poverty.”
Forty-five years later, her grocery-list formula still is the official definition of poverty in America. Using Ms. Orshansky’s method,…

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09.02.2008 9:01 pm

Wednesday editorial: Building on shaky ground

reluctant_immunization_opt.jpgWhatever else is said or done in the next 18 months about reforming the American health care system, tectonic shifts already are well underway.
The latest evidence comes from a new Census Bureau report released last week. It found that the number…

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07.29.2008 2:32 pm

L.A. city council votes to ban fast food

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Fast food banFrom USA Today:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In the impoverished neighborhood of South Los Angeles, fast food is the easiest cuisine to find — and that’s a problem for elected officials who see it as an unhealthy source of calories and…

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06.29.2008 9:00 pm

Monday editorial: Dump poverty data

fieldLet’s ban all those gloomy national statistics about American kids living in poverty. Not many people pay attention. Those who do may feel bad, but they figure there’s little they can do about it. Mostly, they’re right.

Others misinterpret Jesus’ words in…

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06.13.2008 11:25 am

The Way We Are vs. The Way We Think We Are

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Brookings Institution’s Gregg Easterbrook, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has a thought-provoking piece today:

Democratic attacks on Mr. McCain and Republican attacks on Mr. Obama both seek to punish impermissibly positive thoughts. At a time when there exists a sense…

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05.24.2008 10:00 am

Venezuela and Chavez — An editorial notebook by Gilbert Bailon

chavez.jpgCARACAS, VENEZUELA
Americans might well marginalize President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela as the megalomaniac who denounced President George W. Bush as “the devil” who left the smell of sulfur in the air after he spoke to the United Nations in 2006.
Chávez…

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05.12.2008 12:10 pm

Drug treats dental numbness, not wasteful health spending

dentist_opt.jpgNo, it’s not a cure for cancer. But a California drug company has won federal approval to market a medicine that treats another major medical problem affecting millions of Americans: Oral anesthetic hangover.

That’s the drooling, slurred speech and inability to sip…

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