Over half of Virginians (58%) are overweight or obese, our rates of infant mortality are about the national average, and our tobacco use is above-average with 9,700 new tobacco users every year, mostly young people. It was pointed out by a member of the audience that a high tax on tobacco products has been proven to discourage use of tobacco by teens, so maybe we should raise that tax--- he probably doesnGÇÖt know the low tobacco tax is sacred to Virginia tobacco farmers and the no-tax crowd.
The rising cost of health insurance is devastating small businesses and beggaring families. Nationally, a familyGÇÖs annual insurance this year could cost almost $11,500 with two-thirds of that paid by the employer. Small businesses simply cannot afford to continue this benefit, so we will have more and more people uninsured as time passes.
Governor KaineGÇÖs Health Reform Commission, composed of 30 diverse people, is examining four topics, including long-term care and consumer choice. Long-term care brought a number of questions from the audience, including discussion of small group homes as an option in addition to nursing homes and institutional facilities. Medicare is a 100 percent federal program, but with Medicaid, only half of every dollar spent is from the feds, and the total cost for Virginia is an increasing budget item, running $4.4 billion last year. According to Ms. Dix, 36% of the people on Medicaid are aged, blind, and otherwise disabled, but they consume 74% of the total budget. Increased use of managed care is seen as helping to control this expense.
UPCOMING ASSEMBLY SESSION
Delegate Bulova gave a quick rundown on the Assembly session this year, including the fruitless special session, and then launched into a quick view of the upcoming Assembly which will commence the 10th of January 2007. This will be the GÇ£shortGÇ¥ session of 45 days. Interestingly, it will open in Jamestown in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Virginia colony in 1607.
Despite the short session, some heavy topics are on the agenda:
1) Transportation, with an attempt to pass a refined and revised Rust-Albo bil; Delegate Bulova advised us grimly that, since the same players were still in the Assembly, a real transportation fix would have to wait until after the 2008 elections.
2) Early childhood education, one of Governor KaineGÇÖs signature programs designed to utilize existing infrastructure, including church schoolsGÇö which raised questions about whether or not such schools would be permitted to teach religion at their pre-kindergarten school.
3) Electrical de-regulation because, in the 1990's when de-regulation was all the rage, utilities insisted it would create competition and lower prices for consumers, but we have seen how no such thing occurred in Maryland, where consumers saw their utilities bill skyrocket when transitional regulatory caps expired recently; Virginia will probably re-institute some form of cap to protect consumers.
4) Eminent Domain legislation, required because of a Supreme Court decision giving unprecedented power to local governments to confiscate private property in favor of re-development which would provide greater tax revenues; this obnoxious decision must be repaired by legislation to protect individual private property rights in Virginia.
5) Raising the minimum wage, currently at $5.15 an hour, was defeated in GÇÿ06 but sentiment is changing and it may well pass this session.
6) Illegal Immigration which, although primarily a federal problem, has local implications in that two bills which failed in GÇÿ06 will be reintroduced, one to deny access to Virginia institutions of higher learning to the children of undocumented aliens, and the other to deny these children in-state tuition (but still permit them to attend Virginia colleges). This sparked some hostile comments and was probably the touchiest subject of the evening.
BULOVAGÇÖS INITIATIVES
This earnest and hard-working legislator, going into his second Assembly, has an ambitious list of matters he wants to address, including a bill to protect private residential property owners from GÇ£intrusive surveillanceGÇ¥ by a neighborGÇö apparently a hostile nosey neighbor somewhere in Virginia erected a camera pointed at his neighborGÇÖs yard, and has been recording everything going on at his neighborGÇÖs householdGÇö with impunity, as no law currently prevents such private spying. The weird things people do. See, government really can help you out sometimes.