Food Stamp Worker

This article on Food stamp workers, is talking about how the Texas government had to hire more employees to help them go through interviews with the applicants and also view the applications. They are already way behind the deadline to approve people and many families are still waiting to hear back if they got approved. It also talks about how they are hiring so many people and these workers who worked for the government had to go through training real fast. They also say many of these workers are clueless and I am not surprised. You cant ask workers to come in and try to work real fast and interview families to see if they meet the requirements to get food stamps. These employees are working to many hours and are not getting anything done because they are so lost and were put into work without much training. Many employees also cant handle it. I think it was better to train these employees first before they put them out in the offices and made them work. These families are still waiting for responses and many of them need food stamps. The government should have a better plan towards this rather than putting out employees who dont know what they are doing and are not getting any work accomplished.
"We've moved in the right direction," Gov. Rick Perry told reporters
I don't think we are anywhere close to the right direction because 42,000 families are still waiting on responses from the government and these families don't have money as it is!
State Sen. Tommy Williams a republican from The Woodlands said hiring employees for the long term is a good idea but it wont fix the problem right now. I agree we need to work faster, I understand there are not many hours in a week for these employees and also that they already work overtime to process these applications but we need to get smarter and more informed employees to help these families out.
"I'm not sure that getting 250 or 500 people in there who don't know what they're doing is really going to solve this problem,"said Williams
I agree with this statement like i said before it will help long term but not now another thing Williams said was "The only way out is to have a task force of people we know can do the job, and efficiently, and ask them to help us get out of this hole we're in."
This will help us get the work done faster with people who know what they are doing and have the experience.
Sheila Badzioch, a caseworker in Houston said, "There is no way that people who are in training can understand policy — much less do an interview (with an applicant) — in two weeks," she also said, "You're overwhelming the people who are coming in. They're just lost."
Many people agree that these new workers don't know what they are doing. I think we just need better and more informed employees

Health Care Reform Under Obama

In Joe Sudbay's blog on, "Insurance industry's top lobbyist makes case for public option" from the New York Times, is about the Obama administration's health care reform. Joe Sudbay a blogger for AmericaBlog News, is basically talking about the insurnce industry attacking the Baucus bill. He quotes one of the American Health Insurance Plans leader Karen Ignangi saying that her industry doesn't want to insure people with "health problems."

Joe did a great job for the public and himself to back up his ideas. I believe that not everyone needs health care but it would be great to see a plan for health care reform. He gets his story from the New York Times and the source is creditable because Karen Ignangi was quoted in the article and he uses that to back up his agruments. I also don't think its right that insurnce companies are coming out and saying that they don't want to insure people with so called "health problems." What else is the Obama administration making a health reform for. The people with the health problems need it the most thats why they are pushing for health care and most of the country is divided over the issue.

Another Shot for Health Care

The article "Another Model for Health Care Reform" by Hutchison from Austin American Statesman is an argument about the role the government is taking to provide a health care plan. Hutchison also talks about how the Obama administration is pushing a massive government health care plan for everyone. This rules out people making their own decisons on what time of health care they want. She also states that the government's plan for health care will limit a person's opitions on insurance. The article also states that Texas is leading the nation in uninsured people which leads to higher premiums and property taxes for those who are covered. Hutchison wants to take a stance on health care issues but doesn't want the Obama administration to follow up on their health care plan. Her audience is the people of Texas mostly people with no health care right now and also the government of Texas to change the health care policy. Hutchison's solution to this is use health exchange. Health exchange has many advantages as she points out. One is that it is elective so you can choose to do it or not. Another is that you can choose a plan that best meets your needs and in your price range. It is also profitable for employers. The approach would cut administrative costs and labor for companies. In the article it also says that according to the Heritage Foundation, "State-level health insurance exchanges would increase health insurance coverage, significantly lower prices in the individual coverage market." Utah as implanted this plan and it has worked out really good for them so far. Hutchison suggest that the national government also Texas should follow this plan of health care. This will help keep the decison making in the hands of consumers not the government. I agree with Hutchison that we should have a different apporch towards health care and all her claims in the article are reasonable and make sense. She also found evdince from Heritage Foundation which shows us she read about the health exchange and knows much about it. I agree with the author since health care is such a big deal in todays world and many people suffer without health care. This will help everyone get health care even people who go job to job or only have part time jobs.