In the national debate on universal – and hopefully affordable – healthcare continues in the halls of Congress, Washington, West Virginia is the exercise of their own efforts to provide adequate care without breaking the bank in two main areas.

First, the public agency employees insurance covers a series of public hearings throughout the state for thousands of public school employees and employees of the state government for information on proposed changes in the health insurance program PEIA to make it more financially sound.

And Governor Joe Manchin's proposal to expand coverage Medicaid for many of the 271,000 West Virginians without health insurance has now been suspended pending a final decision by Congress that could come later this year. This important component is primarily funded by the federal government would still require a significant amount of dollars state increasingly scarce as well.

About 100 people showed up for PEIA the first public hearing in Charleston last week to voice their objections to the Proposed changes to its health insurance plan that would be effective July 1, 2010. These changes include premium increases ranging from 4 percent to 8 percent along with boosts in deductible annual membership and an average increase of members out of pocket costs for family coverage for $ 1,500 a year.

The round of public hearings in Huntington over this week at 6 pm on Thursday in the Harless Auditorium on the Marshall University Medical Center. PEIA Finance Board will then meet on December 3 for vote on whether to adopt some or all of these changes. Leaders of organizations representing members covered by this health care program insist that this is an ongoing effort to shift more of the cost of this health care agency for workers – a claim no one can dispute.

These critics raised the same objections that a year ago when he decided to eliminate PEIA health insurance subsidy for all public schools and retired state employees hired after June 30, 2010, despite widespread objections from members of the plan in a similar series of public hearings.

And the last idea of the unions representing many of these public employees unions are allowed to take over and run this program PEIA health insurance to more than 200,000 employees public and their dependents, provided that the state government will continue to make "strong annual contributions" to a union trust fund administered by a terrible alternative.

The expansion of the state Medicaid program to allow more adults to be addressed to raise the bar for people with incomes up 50 percent of the federal poverty level and for the first time to include adults without children. At this time, only adults who earn 35 percent of the federal poverty level who have children – the amount is $ 22,050 for a family of four – qualify for state Medicaid assistance.

State lawmakers have opposed the proposed extension Governor's Medicaid coverage because the costs of increased state involvement in this program were not available. This concern is understandable because despite that is largely paid by Medicaid through the Federal Treasury, the State did not collect a fraction of that cost.

If the overall goal is providing medical care to at least 96 percent of people in this country, which means almost 75,000 more than West Virginia should be included in that coverage and an expanded Medicaid program may be the only signs of growing way.There legislative session next week in Charleston especially expected to be convened by the governor during the three days of monthly interim committee meetings could include proposals for new sources of funding for road building in west Virginia.

Both House Speaker Harry K. Finance White, D-Mingo, and Senate Finance Chairman Walt Helmick, D-Pocahontas, told attendees to the 2009 Beckley West Virginia Transportation Conference last week is the time to look to user fees and even public-private partnerships to increase the tax options user movement in gasoline, purchases of vehicles and license plates that now fund the 36,000-mile state highway system.

Helmick, known as a fiscal conservative, even suggested that the Legislature may wish to explore the possibility of transferring a certain amount of general tax revenue separately in the state highway budget. Governor Manchin, also present at the conference, does not mention this as a theme for the planned special legislative period session, but he agrees the state needs to find some source of additional funding.

A distinct possibility if funding for roads has been considered next week would be to reconsider the Legislature's decision earlier this year not to freeze the current gasoline tax at 32.5 cents per gallon. If the tax rate does not freeze before 1 January 2010, the average wholesale price of gasoline from July 1, 2009. and 1 October 2009, require a reduction three to five cents per gallon and the cost of the road fund as much as 70 million U.S. dollars during the financial future of their next year.The budget was painted as anything but rosy in the immediate future, during an annual economic conference last week in Charleston. George Hammond of the WVU Bureau of Business and Economic Research, West Virginia said per capita income of $ 31,641 in 2008 was better than a single state in the union and 21.3 percent below the national average.

He said there were 22,600 fewer jobs in West Virginia during the second quarter of 2009 compared with the second quarter of 2008, so the state's unemployment rate doubled during the same period. And he, like others, does not expect any significant improvement until late 2010.

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