EDITORIAL: The 179,000 Virginians without insurance

June 06--The lost opportunity in Virginia Republicans' opposition to expanding Medicaid eligibility grows every day. Those losses, sadly, are staggering. Especially when compared with the benefits accrued by the 30 states that chose to recoup their residents' federal tax dollars to improve health care, create jobs and redirect existing state taxes to shore up critical departments and programs.

This week, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released a report projecting 179,000 Virginians would have health insurance coverage next year if Virginia lawmakers expanded Medicaid eligibility, as the federal Affordable Care Act prescribes, to cover people earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. That represents less than half the number of Virginians the state estimates may be eligible.

Meanwhile, a report from the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted that the states that expanded Medicaid are realizing significant savings while providing poorer residents with coverage critical to controlling chronic health conditions. Arkansas and Kentucky, in particular, have witnessed "an especially dramatic impact." Rates of uninsured have dropped by half, and savings of state taxes exceeded $100 million this fiscal year.

Virginians can thank the vast majority of Republican lawmakers -- and Portsmouth's Democratic Del. Johnny Joannou -- for rejecting the return of their own federal tax dollars, and for perpetuating an inefficient system that inflates private policyholders' premiums, ignores impending reductions in federal aid for treating the uninsured, and needlessly spends state taxes rather than using available federal funds.

HIT Get some FNV

It even sounds like a manufactured product, the kind that would be sold in 2015 America with a media blitz and celebrity clout. FNV has both, but it has something else: Universal endorsement as part of a healthy diet.

Everyone knows that fruits 'n veggies are good for you. Now Hampton Roads is going to help figure out whether they can be sold to people as easily as the processed foods and sodas with marketing muscle.

Hampton Roads will be one of two test markets for the FNV campaign (the other is Fresno, Calif.), sponsored by the Partnership for a Healthier America. First lady Michelle Obama is the face of the organization.

Hampton Roads, which has stubbornly high rates of obesity and cancers, also is rich in fruit and vegetable traditions, so it makes an ideal test market for the multimillion dollar blitz.

HIT Some improvement... maybe?

The trudge toward economic recovery continues, and last month's unemployment figures offer fresh evidence that job-seekers in Hampton Roads -- as well as Virginia and the U.S. -- appear to be having better luck. The unemployment rate dipped in April to 5.1 percent in Hampton Roads, down from 5.3 percent a year earlier, with the region's seven core cities each posting improvement. Unfortunately, as The Pilot's Philip Walzer reported, the full effects of the seasonally unadjusted numbers are tempered by figures showing fewer people working or looking for work.

HIT See ya, Blatter

Sepp Blatter's announcement that he'll step down as head of Fédération Internationale de Football Association wasn't exactly a surprise. The indictment of a dozen officials last week as a result of an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into international soccer made Blatter's exit inevitable.

That the investigation continued, and that the indicted FIFA officials were lining up to talk to prosecutors, made it a race between the next indictments and a purge of the most corrupt sporting organization in the world.

Prosecutors are also examining FIFA's inexplicable decisions to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar, both prima facie evidence of corruption within the organization.

FIFA's only hope of salvaging any credibility is to immediately withdraw the sports world's biggest events from countries that can't handle them and don't deserve them, and award the tournaments to nations that can and do.

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