I also interviewed Democratic Representative David Watkins who is also a doctor. He said that something needs to be done about healthcare costs because there is a large number of people in poverty especially in the Eastern Kentucky area which causes there to be a lot of people on Medicaid and also a large uninsured group. What he seen as the largest group of people on Medicaid were young women who get pregnant out of wedlock and at a young age. He said that his son Henry is an OBGYN and around 40% of the young unmarried women that come into his clinic are on Medicaid. He said that these women have no way to support themselves and no benefits so Medicaid or no insurance are the only two options.

Rep Watkins had a different view of National Healthcare than Rep DeWeese did; he thought that it would be a good thing because it would eliminate the insurance companies who take 20-25% of the money for healthcare. Right now he said that Medicaid only receives 3-4% of the money and creating a single-payer system would allow more money to help with Medicaid. The KHA is supportive of National healthcare because to them there wouldn’t be much difference because 50-70% of people who attend the hospital are already on Medicaid or Medicare therefore there would not be that great of a change. The only thing that they are not supportive of is government control of hospitals under a National Healthcare system.

I asked Rep. Watkins what he thought about the managed healthcare system and he said that he thought it was fairly good because it addresses the issue of prevention instead of treatment but he didn’t like that instead of saving money it tended to cost more in the implementation process. He said that prevention is half as costly as treatment because it stops the patient from waiting until they illness gets worse and they have to enter the emergency room which costs more. He said that in other countries because they focus on prevention instead of treatment they pay out about $3000 unlike the United States who pays around $6,000 per patient.

            Lastly Rep Watkins and I took a look at some of the bills he had been working on in the session, and how they related to Medicaid and improvement of health insurance for individuals. His major piece of legislation was the Cigarette tax. He talked about a woman he had treated at his concurrence clinic which is a free clinic that he and his son takes care of. The woman ended up costing them and the hospital $15000-$20000 because she was not insured and she had clogged up an artery in her neck because of smoking and required an emergency treatment. He said that together her and her husband spent $4600 annually on cigarettes, money that could have been spent on insurance. Rep Watkins said that increasing the cigarette tax would decrease smoking therefore decreasing the number of patients attending the emergency room because of smoking-related illnesses (Watkins 2008).

This book is a memoir of his conquest to abolish the death penalty. One chapter of the book is devoted to the importance of committee chairs because the position of committee chairs can determine the fate of any bill that comes through the legislative process. When it was time for the abolition bill to be called up in the House Judiciary committee the chair kept putting it off. Mr. Wedekind would continue to ask the chair, Rep. Lindsay, to call up the bill for a vote since the committee had already heard the legislation in the interim session. Wedekind even went to the Speaker and the Majority leader to see if they could talk to the chair about calling up the bill. Finally after the session had come to a close Rep Lindsay was asked why he didn’t bring up the bill and his response was that he didn’t have to. This is an example of how it doesn’t matter about the principles, committee system or representation it only matters about the chairs opinion and his power.

Examples of committee chairs flexing their muscles during this session is when Chairman Gooch of the Natural Resources and Environment committee denied HB 164 be called up for a vote. The reason for this is because he is a strong disbeliever in global warming and an advocate for coal and the bill had regulations that would affect both of these areas. Another committee chair that showed his strength was Appropriations and Revenue Chairman Moberly. He brought in bills that other committees had denied and pushed for certain programs and agendas in the budget.

This book also showed how numbers are important. The Abolitionists did not have a lot of money for their organization but they had a lot of people and in order to be effective in Kentucky government you need one or the other. Because of this large number of people they could get more Congressmen to listen to what that had to say. In Kentucky the righteousness of a bill comes secondary and campaign issues come first. If a representative had a large number of constituents in favor of the bill then he would be more persuaded to vote for it rather than the how ideological it is.

For instance, the debate over gambling was a very difficult issue for some Republicans. There party stance was against it but some of the urban representatives said that they had a large number of constituents that saw no problem with casinos and they didn’t know how they would feel if they voted against it. I know when Representative DeWeese who I interned for found out he had a contender in the next election he tended to take more concern to what his constituents were saying rather than follow the strict party lines.

The last day of session was definitely the most eventful one. The General Assembly was suppose to meet at twelve but they didn’t start till a little after one. They only ended up voting on two bills and most of the time was taken up with citations and people being honored. At two thirty they recessed till four so the pension free conference committee could meet. Four thirty hit and they had still not called the general assembly back into session. Around ten thirty is what time they eventually went in and things were running smoothly on the floor until a bill came up about a GPS tracking device on house arrest individuals; Rep Wayne got up and filibustered the bill taking us to the time of 11:30 and the pension plan still needed to be voted on. The pension plan was brought up at a quarter till twelve but was denied passage as the Democrats finally showed there strength. Rep Hoover, being upset that some many Democratic Representatives were against the bill, stood up and explained the bill and how they had an agreement in the free-conference committee. The speaker cut off Rep Hoover in mid-sentence and said that it wasn’t true, there was no agreement, and the bill failed. President Williams was extremely upset with the bill not passing because this was legislation he had worked on for years. The problem was that a majority of the House Republicans also voted against the legislation because at the time it was voted on for final passage it was 12:15 which meant that the session was over, but the clock had been stopped at 11:54. A large percentage of the representatives didn’t know that the particular bill was the pension plan and they also thought it was illegal to vote after twelve so they voted no. President Williams was angered with the house majority leadership as well as the Republican leadership because of the large republicans voting against it.

Leadership is displayed in many forms and in many areas that affect of lives since we were children we would play follow the leader and other games such as Simon says that would teach us the importance and authority of leaders as well as how to act and become a good follower. As we grew we then saw leadership in nominations in school clubs and organizations and then as we venture out into the workforce and a project needs to be completed leaders are selected to keep everything under control and in order. Leadership can be seen in other areas such as in religion, social, and political. As an intern in Frankfort I got to see the role leadership can play in politics and how through a leader’s strength, charisma, and stability they can influence those around them and the secondary crowd with is the public in which they serve.

In this paper I intend to look at how leadership has affected the legislative process in the 2008 General Assembly. I will incorporate quotes and comments that Representatives have made to me directly or indirectly and the books that we have read in the Kentucky Politics class to break down why leaders act in these ways and how the traditionalism of Kentucky has affected the way a leader is traditionally suppose to act.  I will also take a brief look on how the governor is a leader for his party in the legislature and how the timing and strength of his leadership can affect what can happen in the General Assembly. I will also look at how even though some members may not have leadership roles they are leaders. I will end the paper by showing the outcome of the General Assembly’s legislation particularly looking at the budget and David Williams and Greg Stumbo’s influence in it.

 

Sources:

Kentucky Politics and Government, Penny Miller

Divide and Dissent: Kentucky Politics 1930-1963, John Ed Pearce

Big Coal, Jeff Goodell

Politics, Religion and Death, Carl Wedekind

www.kftc.org

Coal the biggest natural resource in the state of KY. It can be viewed in two ways one as a way to advance economic growth or the second permitting economic growth for the people. During this semester I read the book Big Coal. The big themes of this book are there is overall optimism of the quantity and quality of coal, there are many dangers associated with this resource, and a lot the money that is supposed to be going towards economic development enters the hands of people not from the immediate extraction areas. Coal affects the politics of the nation, state and the local areas where it is extracted and can even affect the international energy conditions. A lot of politicians see this as a way to influence other state and national policy areas because coal is so much of our energy source in this nation and in the state of KY little do the politicians know that the ones that are be influenced are themselves from the ‘Big’ coal companies. The first thing the book brought up was the idea of coal colonies and how coal affects communities. A lot of the communities see coal on a personal level, such as Rep Stewart who in previous years had coal mined in his district so it is a cultural thing. But one key point the book brought forward is that coal is a resource curse because it is just being extracted therefore not a lot of things are being given back to the community where it is extracted unlike manufacturing companies and developments who give back. Stereotypes also tend to be prevalent of these so called coal colonies where the people are made less than others so the damage that is done to their health cannot be related to others who do not live in coal areas. The opposite of this division perspective is the one taken by many of the Republican politicians in the House and the Senate and that view is that coal is patriotic and by using it you are benefiting working class Americans. This statement used to be more true when miners where going down into shafts to mine but now mining has all gone to strip mining which is safer but has cut down on the number of jobs available. This reduction of workers in this field has lead to a negative view of the coal mining job and less and less needs and characteristics of the traditional people that worked in coal mines are be fulfilled therefore causing a reduction of people going into this particular line of work. Another thing that alienates these communities is the way coal severance is appropriated into becoming another form of patronage instead of allowing the citizens to run it as the tobacco subsidies are done. In this yrs budget that was passed just last wk a lot of coal severance taxes were cut angering many members of the Eastern KY mafia so in order to please them projects were rewarded. This is just a few of the points the book brings up but I believe they are the most pertinent to Kentucky.

The last week of my internship was probably the most exciting because the budget had to be voted on and was debated on in the free conference committee. On Tuesday session didn’t meet till four because leadership for both parties in both chambers had stayed up till 8 in the morning fighting over the budget. Halfway through the free conference committee Senate President Williams walked out when the House and the Senate couldn’t agree on how much money the governor would be appropriated after a couple hrs when a deal was made the senate agreed to the deal. Many Republicans and Democrats were very upset with the budget because there were no new sources of revenue in the form of taxes or casinos and many coal and tobacco severance taxes were cut this angered both Western and Eastern KY representatives. So in order to please them certain projects for the representatives that opposed the bill were awarded to their district. For instance Eastern KY Rep Stewart got SEEK money for a 40 person school that is supposed to be closing down. Pres Williams also negotiated with Rep Stumbo on projects for the Democratic Representatives; the funniest part about this was that Rep Stumbo is not in a leadership position so therefore Pres Williams overlooked the House Speaker and turned to his opponent for Leadership Rep Stumbo. On Wednesday the bill was voted on but before it was passed several Representatives stood up to talk against it. One of these was Moberley who is the A and R chair. He said that the appropriations given to the education program was not enough and that both chambers were allowing one man to run the state and he voted against the bill. Rep Lee also got up and talked about the cutbacks the human services were going to have to make because of no new revenue but he voted for the budget because he said that a crappy budget is better than no budget. There were 20+ members that voted against the bill but the budget still passed unanimously.

Over the past few weeks along with interning in Frankfort I have been working on a research paper. Rep DeWeese field of expertise is in Medical field and because he was so skilled in this area he had a lot of bills during this session that pertained to Medical issues. So in order to get Rep DeWeese take on my paper about Medicaid and Insurance I sat down and had an interview with him about what he knew about the subject and how it has affected him and his line of work as a surgeon. His view on a National or even statewide health insurance was that the insurance companies would have the monopoly even more than they already do. Dr DeWeese said that over the years insurance companies have gradually cut back their reimbursement to doctors and hospitals because they pay everybody on a Medicaid fee which is 50% of the normal reimbursement, therefore the insurance companies are sucking the money out of the system and giving it to themselves which causes malpractice costs to increase therefore affecting the amount of people who want to enter the medical profession. Rep DeWeese said that with increased Medicaid the doctors have to stay in their office constantly to work with patients instead of making their rounds and checking on their regular patients who then get turned over to intensivist and internalist who are not as qualified as the physician/surgeon causing more health problems and the previous health problems to even persist. Rep. DeWeese sees that a National Healthcare Plan would guarantee basic healthcare but doesn’t focus on intensive healthcare. He says that there is a certain amount of money that you get for that particular area of care and then after that the money is cut off and some patients cannot be seen because of this rationing of healthcare there is no competition and prices can’t be lowered so in essence there is no free market system.