Editorials from around Ohio

Excerpts of recent editorials of statewide and national interest from Ohio newspapers:

The Canton Repository, Mar. 11

“On November 5th, right after halftime against the Hawks, I had a panic attack.”

So begins the first-person account Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star forward Kevin Love wrote last week in opening himself to the public and discussing personal mental health issues for the first time.

To which we say: Bravo, Mr. Love.

Titled “Everyone is Going Through Something” and appearing on the website The Players’ Tribune, where athletes can share insight and opinion, Love’s self-awareness and introspection put into words the thoughts and feelings millions of Americans experience every day.

Stark County Mental Health and Recovery reports mental disorders affect roughly one-quarter of all Americans. Let that sink in for a moment. More than 2 million Ohioans and upward of 200,000 children in our state.

We know from recent experiences in our schools that some kids in our community are dealing with serious mental health issues.

Love said he took the step of publicizing his experiences, which he traces back several years, with the hope it will allow others to see help is possible - help is available - for those struggling to overcome “injuries” not readily apparent. He described pain “as real as a broken hand or a sprained ankle.” Yet no one could see it.

“If you’re suffering silently like I was, then you know how it can feel like nobody really gets it,” he wrote. “Partly, I want to do it for me, but mostly, I want to do it because people don’t talk about mental health enough. And men and boys are probably the farthest behind.”

To find mental health and addiction treatment resources, visit StarkMHAR.org/CareNetwork

Love identified one of the biggest obstacles mental health service providers face every day: a culture that equates mental health issues with weakness.

Get over it. Suck it up. What’s wrong with you? Be a man.

Before going public, Love wrote, he felt admitting his panic attack - he described himself “running from room to room, like I was looking for something I couldn’t find” - would be seen as a “form of weakness that could derail my success in sports or make me seem weird or different.”

Quite the contrary. Love joins a growing list of famous athletes and celebrities who have shared their stories publicly: swimmer Michael Phelps, NFL Pro Bowl wide receiver Brandon Marshall, NBA All-Star Jerry West, rock singer Rick Springfield, Prince Harry, to name but a few. Talking begins the healing, each said.

Staff at Stark MHAR said each time a public figure comes forward, it can help others in the community gain the strength to seek help as well.

“Kevin Love’s article emphasizes the importance of raising awareness, of taking care of your mental health, and the importance of accessing treatment earlier,” agency Executive Director John Aller said. “The path to healing and recovery can start as soon as treatment begins.”

Love ended his open letter with these thoughts:

“This is an everyone thing. No matter what our circumstances, we’re all carrying around things that hurt - and they can hurt us if we keep them buried inside. Not talking about our inner lives robs us of really getting to know ourselves and robs us of the chance to reach out to others in need. So if you’re reading this and you’re having a hard time, no matter how big or small it seems to you, I want to remind you that you’re not weird or different for sharing what you’re going through.

“Just the opposite. It could be the most important thing you do. It was for me.” …

Online: http://bit.ly/2ImH0qW

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The (Youngstown) Vindicator, Mar. 12

There are two kinds of governments: those that are driven by the people, from the bottom up, and those that are run by rulers, from the top down.

There is an adage that knowledge is power. When it comes to representative government, knowledge of what government officials are doing protects the power of the people. Knowledge is what keeps dictators at bay. People have to be able to see what their representatives in government are doing or those representatives will begin operating in their own best interests.

Since 2005, this has been the time of year when the American Society of Newspaper Editors observes national Sunshine Week, a celebration of access to public information. It coincides with the March 16 birthday of James Madison, father of the U.S. Constitution and a key advocate of the Bill of Rights.

Sunshine Week is championed by newspaper editors, but it’s designed for everyone. Its focus is on open-meetings laws and public-records laws used every day by the press to shine a light on how government works - or doesn’t work. Everyone, not just the press, has a stake in open government, and everyone can play a role in protecting our heritage as an open and free society.

Meetings take place every day that have the potential to change the lives of people. Locally there are city councils, township trustees, school boards, county commissioners, boards of elections, boards of health, port authorities and others.

In Columbus, in addition to the General Assembly, there are dozens of state agencies charged with running our prisons, responding to disasters, protecting against environmental hazards and generally providing for the public health and safety.

The court system provides for justice in civil and criminal matters and holds judges, prosecutors and lawyers to ethical standards. The need for police departments and criminal courts to operate in the open was recognized by the Founders who knew something about the historical injustice of star chambers and coerced confessions.

While we are centuries removed from the Star Chamber, we don’t have to look far to find public officials who find it more convenient to operate behind closed doors.

Online: http://bit.ly/2DjR409

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The Blade, Mar. 12

The Toledo-Lucas County Public Library’s decision to shut down for a nearly a year to undertake a $10.4-million renovation is a lot to ask of the community - especially after having kept the decision process almost a state secret.

That’s an ironic thing for a library, libraries having often taken the lead to defend the public’s right to know.

The library has a construction plan that will dramatically reorient the Main Library downtown. What is now the audio-visual section will become a “maker’s space” with small sound studios and other facilities that enable people to make videos, recordings, and otherwise explore their creative potential.

The computer area with 85 computers will be updated and will get away from the individual stalls to a more collaborative setting.

Another big change is that the gift shop and cafe on the garage level will move up to the main floor, with the addition of a gallery. The library intends a kind of Main Street that will extend from the Michigan Street entrance to the windows at the rear looking out on Uptown.

The Promenade - where the cafe and gift shop are now at the garage level - will be reconfigured to create meeting rooms and incubator space that will be accessible before and after the library’s open hours.

These are all exciting and appropriate improvements designed to increase the usage of the library and its usefulness, especially to people trying to create a future for themselves and their community.

What is unfortunate, and might have been avoided with some community input, is that one of Toledo’s most important institutions would be shut down for a year at a time when the downtown has some forward momentum with new companies moving their employees there. …

… Many Central City people cannot get to branch libraries, at least not easily. Also, many homeless people use the library for warmth and shelter, especially in the winter. The downtown churches ought to collaborate on a clean, warm, and safe downtown adult day shelter and center.

Meanwhile, the library should construct a temporary reading and lending room somewhere downtown during the construction period.

Good for the library for its forward thinking, but let’s not leave the public in the lurch.

Online: http://bit.ly/2tEjSB1

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Columbus Dispatch, Mar.

If Gov. John Kasich is to be judged on the values he says he tried to follow during his two terms, attention must be paid to the Medicaid work requirements his administration seeks to impose as his tenure winds down.

For good or bad, Kasich will be remembered for bucking his Republican colleagues and the usual legislative process to expand Medicaid, the federal/state program of health care for the poor and disabled.

Now advocates for Ohio’s neediest citizens say Kasich’s legacy of extending help to those less fortunate is threatened by proposed new rules requiring Medicaid recipients to either work or meet exemptions to continue their health-care access. The proposed work rules are to be officially filed after a comment period ends March 18. Then federal approval is expected within a couple of months, making a July 1 start date possible.

The proposed work requirement came about as lawmakers last year enacted the state’s current two-year budget. The administration had sought to impose health-care premiums for Medicaid recipients with incomes at the federal poverty level and above. (In Ohio, those with incomes up to 138 percent of poverty - $16,753 for an individual or $34,638 for a family of four- may be eligible for Medicaid.) When lawmakers suggested work requirements instead, the administration didn’t oppose the substitution.

Either option moves Medicaid toward requiring a measure of “personal responsibility,” which the Kasich administration has long desired, explained Greg Moody, director of the state’s Office of Health Transformation. The intent is to enact the work requirements with “fairness and reasonableness,” Moody said, but that’s where opponents fear the state will fail.

The Medicaid work requirements would apply to new beneficiaries and about 700,000 who qualify only because of Kasich’s expansion of eligibility. Exemptions are to be consistent with exceptions to work requirements imposed in 2013 under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for food-stamp recipients in all but 13 rural Ohio counties.

Moody and Medicaid Director Barbara Sears believe 95 percent of those who would be subject to the work requirement already meet it or would be exempted due to chronic health problems, being over 50 or because they are caring for dependent children.

Opponents of the Medicaid work rules contend that, despite the state’s estimate that up to 144,000 individuals would lose food stamps due to the 2013 work requirements, the number actually is closer to 366,000. So they doubt the current estimate that just 36,000 of the 700,000 in the expanded pool of Medicaid recipients face losing health care access if they can’t meet work requirements. They say the requirement would undo much of the Medicaid expansion and could hurt Ohio’s already high infant-mortality rate by denying care to women of child-bearing age.

Online: http://bit.ly/2FBRalQ

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