Medicaid work requirements could hurt entrepreneurs

Mandatory work requirements for access to Medicaid must not be instated as the Pennsylvania Legislature is currently considering (April 10, “State House Committee Set to Add Work Requirements to Two Safety-net Programs”).

I am an able-bodied, collegeeducated, solo entrepreneur with a rapidly growing consulting business in Pittsburgh, and I rely on Medicaid. Any business owner will tell you that the first one to two years is the hardest, and it’s true. I intend to be paying for my own health insurance by the end of this year when my income outpaces my startup expenses. In fact, I recently paid far more than required on my first quarter of estimated taxes to the state of Pennsylvania because I know I’ll be making a lot more money by the end of this year. But, for now, I can’t afford health insurance, which I barely use anyway.

Given the nature of my work, my hours are difficult to track and verify. Filing taxes is burdensome enough. I don’t have bandwidth to wade through the bureaucratic swamp of paperwork that would be required by mandatory work requirements for Medicaid. Time is money, and the sooner I can get my business off the ground, the sooner I can start investing into the social safety net for everyone’s benefit.

Rather than spend $3.4 billion in taxpayer money over six years on administrative burdens, red tape and bureaucracy that would quash young entrepreneurs among many others, lawmakers should invest that money in real workforce development programs and bringing jobs to Pennsylvania. SETH BUSH Wilkinsburg the “celebration” would turn violent. Others referenced Ferguson and Baltimore as racial unrest that could not happen in Allegheny County.

It is apparent to me as a law enforcement analyst with a graduate degree from Mercyhurst University in Erie that overtones of the socio-political disorder are plainly on the minds of public safety administrators nationally at this time. At a greater risk to harmony is the underlying deep fissures existing within the United States population, based on political divisions and fractured understandings of contemporary American momentum as a country.

All it would potentially take to upset the proverbial apple cart if Robert Mueller were to indict the 45th president or others in his personal network/ family would be a public call via Twitter to protect the president from the so-called “deep state.” All but instantaneously a caravan of pickup trucks would ring the White House like the vaunted wagon trains of the Wild West era. Not since the summer of 1932 when 10,000 members of the World War I Bonus Army set up camp in Washington, D.C., for two months would anything really be comparable.

Of course, I do not wish to see these events come to fruition. However, the oft-cited phrase “may you live in interesting times” is most applicable to the present day. It is because we surely do. CHARLES KADER Cleveland, Ohio

At first I cheered to read Beverly Weintraub’s commentary about Southwest Airlines Capt. Tammie Jo Shults’ heroic emergency landing of Flight 1380. (April 21, “Sully Was a Hero; Shults Is a Female”). I had been waiting for someone to point out the obvious disparity in coverage of the incident compared with that of Sully Sullenberger.

Then, I noticed the photo accompanying

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the commentary is the same one that’s been published time and again: a 25-yearold photo of an attractive young Navy pilot with her long hair blowing in the wind. It’s practically a glamour shot.

While I’ve yet to see a present-day photo of Capt. Shults, from day one we’ve known Sully only as that grand old man with the white hair and mustache. Seems, in facing down sexist stereotypes, we still have a long way to go. JOE CORCORAN

Irwin

This is a shout-out to Post-Gazette photographer Steph Chambers for the April 19 photo “Crossing Guard & Friends” of Rhavyn Doubt, crossing guard Carla Harris and Rhayvn’s stuffed animal “Fluffy.”

With all the gun violence and bullying going on among children, it was nice to see a kid just be a kid. STORMIE MIRAMONTEZ

Shadyside