VOTING LOCATIONS HAVE CHANGED!! SEE MESSAGE BELOW.
VOTING LOCATIONS HAVE CHANGED!! SEE MESSAGE BELOW.
Well-run businesses and organizations know the importance of establishing goals and creating a plan to achieve them. SMART goals have measures of success and continually perform measurements of their progress. In my Positions Paper I use three renowned and respected reports on state/community measures: US News Healthiest Communities, CNBC Top States for Businesses, and the Forbes Best States for Businesses. In addition, there are community specific goals that are important and other sources of data such as the Census that we can use to measure our progress.
Unlike many states with aging infrastructure, decaying cities, urban crowding, obsolete factories/industries and other maladies associated with 20th century growth, Wyoming is just coming into its own. It is a beautiful state with tremendous resources and tremendous potential.
As we continue to grow we don’t need to clean up the old before we build the new. We can identify the industries of the twenty first century, what their infrastructure and workforce needs are and prepare our communities and people to provide attractive, affordable places for these companies to locate.
Technology is making the world interconnected and companies want affordable locations with highly trained workforces that are motivated and hardworking – a perfect description of the Wyoming workforce. Some things we need to focus on:
These are some of things that we are capable of achieving if we work together for our common good. These are things that are important to me and I would be honored to serve in representing our community to keep us focused and moving forward towards an even more promising future and community. We can do it
Health should be an inalienable right for all
Americans and there are things we can do to enhance our systems:
Because Wyoming has not adopted Medicaid Expansion we have a significant number of people without insurance.
59,970 Number of people covered by Medicaid/CHIP as of July 2018
27,000 Number of people who would be covered if the state accepted expansion
6,000 Number of people who have no realistic access to health insurance without Medicaid expansion
$1.3 billion Money the state is leaving on the table over the next decade by not expanding Medicaid
https://www.healthinsurance.org/wyoming-medicaid/
All children in Wyoming should have access to a strong, high-quality education which leads to a workforce that attracts desired industries and creates rewarding careers and strong families. In order to achieve that we need to ensure:
Our future lies with our children and we must ensure that they thrive in a safe environment. I will work to ensure:
Good paying jobs and a vibrant economy are an essential part of our community. To achieve this our state must attract businesses as we compete with our bordering states. Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska and South Dakota are all in the TOP 15 STATES. Wyoming is in the bottom half at 32nd.
Our three most serious challenges for attracting businesses are our Economic Climate (second to last at 49th); Labor Supply (39th) and Quality of Life (36th).
We need to work together to create a plan that improves our competitive advantage for attracting businesses to Wyoming. My Position Paper helps identify the underlying problems and frames the discussion so that there is common ground we can achieve together.
We are concerned not only with individual health but also the health of our community as well as our access to and the affordability of our healthcare system. US News has been measuring Community Health for many years with a respected and credible approach. Albany County needs improvement on several measures of health.
There are 3,243 counties in the US but most of them have a lot of land and few people. US News only ranks the Top 500. Albany County dropped from #350 in 2018 to #461 in 2019. On a 100 point scale, Albany County scored less than 60 on: Equity (39), Economy (52), Housing (41), Food & Nutrition (49), and Community Vitality (33). You can drill down within the report to more specific issues to focus on. I've grouped them into Health, Wealth and Equity in the table below. I've also provided the State of Wyoming's score for comparison as well as the US score to show where the state is not performing adequately.
HEALTH INSURANCE
There are 3 issues that need attention. The biggest is that 11.7% of of us have no health insurance in the county compared to only 9.9% nationally. This June, Michael Flor of Seattle received his hospital bill for being treated for COVID-19: $1.1 million dollars and that doesn't include the cost of the skilled nursing facility, dialysis or the cost of the doctors that treated him. Fortunately he had Medicare. But 27,000 people in Wyoming who would be covered by Medicaid expansion have no insurance because the state has failed to accept Medicaid expansion.
Source: https://www.healthinsurance.org/wyoming-medicaid/
FOOD & NUTRITION
Food Insecurity is another issue for Albany County. With respect to the Food Environment Index Score a higher score indicates more healthy food than unhealthy food is available in a community. The statewide average is twice as high as Albany County. Part of the problem is a lack of larger grocery stores throughout the county.
Because Wyoming has not adopted Medicaid Expansion we have a significant number of people without insurance.
59,970 Number of people covered by Medicaid/CHIP as of July 2018
27,000 Number of people who would be covered if the state accepted expansion
6,000 Number of people who have no realistic access to health insurance without Medicaid expansion
$1.3 billion Money the state is leaving on the table over the next decade by not expanding Medicaid
Most people build wealth from their income and home. However, building wealth in Albany County can be a challenge. To begin, the average person in the county earns only 73 cents on the dollar compared to the average for the state. Their $43,043 is $16,100 per year less than the average $59,143 for the state.
In addition, housing costs are more difficult to cover. A worker in Albany has to work 51.6 hours to cover their monthly housing costs compared to only 33.4 hours for the rest of the state. And the county does not have enough affordable housing, falling 88% short of its needs compared to the state falling 55.8% short of its needs. All this adds up to only 48.9% of the people in Albany owning their own homes compared to 68.6% statewide. And to compound the problem, property values are increasing by 10.5% here compared to 8.4% for the rest of the state so it’s becoming even harder. With the lower income and higher housing costs it’s no wonder that the poverty rate in Albany is more than double the statewide average, 25.5% versus 11.6%. These factors undoubtedly contribute to the out migration from Albany, the population declined by 6.5% over the past decade compared to a 2.7% increase for the state.
Equity is about fairness and justice. Communities are more attractive to new businesses and new residents and are better places to live when everybody is doing well rather than having significant wealth disparities between neighborhoods. Having a very wealthy neighborhood next to an extremely impoverished neighborhood is not a formula for success.
As already noted, the poverty rate in Albany County is more than double the statewide average. Often there is a significant disparity in poverty along racial lines but that's not the case in Albany, The disparity in poverty gap tied to race for the state is five times higher than it is in the county. Rather, the disparity in poverty is tied to neighborhoods. With whites being over 90% of the population they account for a significant portion of the poor. Likewise the disparity in education also tied to neighborhoods although there is a disparity in education tied to race.
While Albany County scored high on several measures of health, there are some areas where on a score of 0 to 100, we scored 50 or less. The opportunities for improvement are: Equity (39), Economy (52), Housing (41), Food & Nutrition (49) and Community Vitality (33)
There's much to see here. So, take your time, look around, and learn all there is to know about us. We hope you enjoy our site and take a moment to drop us a line.
Health should be an inalienable right for all Americans and there are things we can do to enhance our systems:
· Expand Medicaid in order to increase access for families https://www.healthinsurance.org/wyoming-medicaid/
· Expand suicide prevention and awareness efforts
· Attack the opioid and other addiction problems
· Remove the stigma from ‘mental health’ issues and appropriately reframe them as health issues
· Include social-emotional health services in insurance benefits and provide continual assistance to families seeking help.
· Expand medical access and care with innovations such as telehealth.
· Ensure recognition and protection for all different family arrangements.
Copyright © 2018 Jackie Grimes for Wyoming State Senate District 10 - All Rights Reserved
Powered by GoDaddy