Letter from Ron Bishop

On ‘Core Value Hypocrisy’

I believe our federal government’s moves to reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud by cutting payments to states with unacceptably high error rates are efforts we could all support—if only everyone in the administration shared that goal. President Trump has pardoned 13 people convicted of felony Medicare fraud, including Phillip Esformes ($1.3 billion). Did our poor neighbors getting kicked off healthcare coverage take too much—or far too little?

While the numbers of people covered by Medicare and Medicaid are dropping, thanks to this administration’s policies nearly everyone’s health insurance premiums are rising to the point where many folks are opting out of health insurance (and preventive healthcare) altogether. So much for the “Make America Healthy Again” initiative: It’s a sham.

In his State of the Union address, President Trump claimed that his and Congress’ Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) policies “lifted 2.4 million people off food stamps.” In fact, more of our neighbors go hungry now than this time last year because of the onerous new rules.
Then Mr. Trump launched a wretchedly strategized war that primarily achieved skyrocketing fuel prices. Operation Epstein Distraction has gone badly enough that officials have resorted to religious platitudes, buttressed by War Secretary Hegseth quoting lines from “Pulp Fiction” as if they were Scripture.

Whatever our Otsego County leaders are (or are not) doing to mitigate the wrongful impacts of these policies on folks here, I would not expect attacks on the League of Women Voters, as we witnessed last week, to help. Local officials who waste time on partisan spats and demean others who don’t embrace their “values” are indistinguishable from our flagging national leaders. Sadly, it appears to me that the Republican core value most prevalent these days is hypocrisy.

Ron Bishop
Cooperstown