ROGERSVILLE, UNITED STATES: Maribeth Coote says she hates Obamacare, but it’s the only health coverage option she can afford in this remote, hardscrabble corner of southwestern Pennsylvania.
The government should “just back off and let me figure it out, and get out of the whole industry” of health care, the 52-year-old Chicago transplant to the tiny town of Rogersville said as she cleaned up her woodworking shed from recent flooding.
Donna Himelrick is uninsured and priced out of the market, despite being the mayor of Hundred, a small town 20 miles (32 kilometers) south in neighboring West Virginia.
“I make too much for Medicaid and not enough that we can afford insurance. It’s a difficult situation,” Himelrick, 62, said at a clinic in nearby Burton, where she pays for medical treatment in cash, according to what she can afford.
Like millions in Appalachia, both women voted for Donald Trump in last November’s election seeking to upend the political system. The Affordable Care Act, they insist, is not the answer to their health woes.
But both would face dramatic changes to their health care — probably for the worse, at least at first — if Obamacare is replaced by the plan being hashed out by Republican lawmakers in Washington, a cultural and political world away.
Local clinics are a lifeline for many in this economically stagnant, overwhelmingly white region. Ambulance coverage is spotty, and rough roads with rougher weather can leave insular communities even more isolated in emergencies.
Now that Trump is president, the reforms installed by his predecessor Barack Obama are under threat, potentially spelling disaster for several community health centers in Pennsylvania and neighboring West Virginia.
“There are a lot of things that need to be straightened out” with health care, but shuttering local clinics “would be a concern to me,” Himelrick conceded. Lawmakers should “tread lightly.”
The Cornerstone Care CHC in Rogersville, which treats Coote, and several other facilities serve an area where coal mines have recently closed, pushing up unemployment, and where health facilities can be 20 miles or more apart.
“We are the safety net for this community,” Janice Morris, chief executive of the Clay-Battelle CHC in Blacksville, West Virginia, said in an interview.
Under Obamacare, several states have expanded Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor and disabled, to include residents whose income is at or below 138 percent of the poverty level.
But with some 670,000 people in Pennsylvania and 175,000 in West Virginia eligible for Medicaid through the expansion, a rollback of the program as proposed in the Republican plan would “have a terrible impact there,” Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, told AFP back in Washington.
At Clay-Battelle clinic, nearly half of the patients are either on Medicaid or Medicare, the coverage program for the elderly.
Many of the clinic’s 300 to 400 weekly patients pay on a scale according to their financial ability — a system known as “the slide.”
The clinic covers the slack through Medicaid and commercial insurance reimbursements, federal and state funding, and grants.
Obamacare has helped Clay-Battelle and Cornerstone lower the rate of uninsured who get treatment there. The resulting increase in reimbursements have translated into expanding staff and hours of operation.
That could crumble if Obamacare disappears.
“A lot of people don’t recognize that the health coverage they have was made possible through the Affordable Care Act,” Morris said.
Don Humbertson, 64, says he owes his life to Clay-Battell doctors who discovered he had lung cancer.
The retired concrete worker is insured through his wife’s bus-driver job, but he has grown to appreciate how Obamacare has given those in need a chance.
“Obamacare when it first came out, I was totally against it,” said Humbertson, who has had difficulty breathing and speaking since part of his right lung was removed.
“But I’ve seen how it was helping some people.”
Instead of pulling it out by its roots, he said, Republicans and Democrats should come together and fix the current law.
That is not what’s happening.
Republican leaders are keen to keep popular provisions that bar companies from refusing to insure people because of pre-existing conditions.
But in a bid to provide more free-market choice and competition, they want to slash the amount of subsidies that would be provided for Americans to buy health care, potentially putting insurance out of reach for millions.
The bill is hanging by a thread, with the House of Representatives likely to vote on the measure Friday.
“We feel like we’re just getting whipsawed around,” Cornerstone Care chief executive Richard Rinehart said.
“We’re in the trenches, we’re dealing with these health issues that are real.”
Cornerstone operates another clinic in the larger town of Waynesburg, where coal silos, conveyors and green buildings of the shuttered Emerald Mine stand as ghostly reminders of better days.
In Trump country, many health workers are aware of the irony of a Republican law appearing likely to hurt health centers’ ability to care for the very people who voted the president into office.
“I see it very personally,” Morris said. “Many of our staff people are Trump supporters.”
But health outcomes of Americans are “at risk” because of the Republican plan, he added.
“I would urge them to really think about those people in rural America that they got support from... Don’t turn your back on them.”
In Trump land, painful choices await if Obamacare goes
In Trump land, painful choices await if Obamacare goes
Rights groups take UK govt to court over Israel arms sales
- Lawyer: The UK government had “expressly departed from its own domestic law in order to keep arming Israel,” with F-35s being used to drop “multi-ton bombs on the people of Gaza.”
LONDON: Rights groups and NGOs are dragging the UK government to court on Tuesday accusing it of breaching international law by supplying fighter jet parts to Israel amid the war in Gaza.
Supported by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and others, the Palestinian rights association Al-Haq is seeking to stop the government’s export of UK-made components for Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.
Israel has used the American warplanes to devastating effect in Gaza and the West Bank, and the head of Amnesty UK said Britain had failed to uphold its “legal obligation... to prevent genocide” by allowing the export of key parts to Israel.
The plane’s refueling probe, laser targeting system, tires, rear fuselage, fan propulsion system and ejector seat are all made in Britain, according to Oxfam, and lawyers supporting Al-Haq’s case said the aircraft “could not keep flying without continuous supply of UK-made components.”
It is not clear when a decision could be made following the four-day hearing at London’s High Court, the latest stage in a long-running legal battle.
Lawyers for the Global Action Legal Network have said they launched the case soon after Israel’s assault on Gaza was triggered by the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks.
Israel has repeatedly denied accusations of genocide.
The lawyers said the UK government had decided in December 2023 and April and May 2024 to continue arms sales to Israel, before in September 2024 then suspending licenses for weapons which were assessed as being for military use by the Israeli army in Gaza.
The new Labour government suspended around 30 licenses following a review of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law, but the partial ban did not cover British-made parts for the advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets.
A UK government spokesperson told AFP it was “not currently possible to suspend licensing of F-35 components for use by Israel without prejudicing the entire global F-35 program, due to its strategic role in NATO and wider implications for international peace and security.”
“Within a couple of months of coming to office, we suspended relevant licenses for the IDF that might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of International Humanitarian Law in Gaza,” they said.
The government insisted it had “acted in a manner consistent with our legal obligations” and was “committed to upholding our responsibilities under domestic and international law.”
But GLAN described the F-35 exemption as a “loophole” which allowed the components to reach Israel indirectly through a global pooling system.
Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, a lawyer for GLAN, told a briefing last week the UK government had “expressly departed from its own domestic law in order to keep arming Israel,” with F-35s being used to drop “multi-ton bombs on the people of Gaza.”
Hamas’s 2023 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Monday that at least 2,749 people have been killed since Israel ended a two-month ceasefire in mid-March, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,862.
“Under the Genocide Convention, the UK has a clear legal obligation to do everything within its power to prevent genocide,” said Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive.
“Yet the UK government continues to authorize the export of military equipment to Israel — despite all the evidence that genocide is being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza. This is a fundamental failure by the UK to fulfil its obligations.”
Al-Haq’s general director Shawan Jabarin said: “The United Kingdom is not a bystander. It’s complicit, and that complicity must be confronted, exposed and brought to account.”
UN aviation agency finds Russia responsible for 2014 downing of airliner over Ukraine
MONTREAL: The United Nations aviation agency said Monday that Russia was responsible for the downing of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner over Ukraine in 2014, leading to the deaths of 298 people.
The International Civil Aviation Organization , based in Montreal, said claims brought by Australia and the Netherlands over the shooting down of Flight MH17 on July 17 of that year were “well founded in fact and in law.”
“The Russian Federation failed to uphold its obligations under international air law in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17,” the agency said in a statement issued Monday evening.
The OCAO said this was the first time in its history that its council has made a determination on the merits of a dispute between member states.
On July 17, 2014 the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 — en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur — crashed in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region where pro-Russian separatist rebels were battling Ukrainian forces.
The plane was hit by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile.
Dutch nationals accounted for two-thirds of the dead, along with 38 Australians and about 30 Malaysians, with many victims having dual nationalities.
Then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called it a “terrorist act.”
Pro-Russian rebels in the area claimed the airliner was shot down by a Ukrainian military jet. Russian President Vladimir Putin says Ukraine “bears responsibility.”
The following day, then US president Barack Obama said a missile fired from separatist-held territory was to blame and the rebels would not have been able to hit the airliner without Russian support.
In 2022 a Dutch court sentenced three men to life in prison over the downing, among them two Russians, but Russia refused to extradite them.
Russia has consistently denied any involvement in the tragedy.
The governments of Australia and the Netherlands welcomed the UN agency’s decision Monday night.
“This is a historic moment in the pursuit of truth, justice and accountability for the victims of the downing of Flight MH17, and their families and loved ones,” the Australian government said in a statement.
It called on the agency to “move swiftly to determine remedies” for Russia’s violation of international law.
“We call upon Russia to finally face up to its responsibility for this horrific act of violence and make reparations for its egregious conduct, as required under international law,” the statement added.
International investigators suspended their probe of the downing last year, saying there was not enough evidence to identify more suspects.
US House Republicans seek to kill EV tax credit, loan program
- The US Treasury in 2024 awarded more than $2 billion in point-of-sale rebates for EVs
WASHINGTON: Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Monday proposed killing the electric vehicle tax credit and repealing fuel efficiency rules designed to prod automakers into building more zero-emission vehicles as part of a broad-based tax reform bill.
The proposal, which is set for a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday, would repeal a $7,500 new-vehicle tax credit and a $4,000 used-vehicle credit on Dec. 31, although it would maintain the new-vehicle credit for an additional year for automakers that have not yet sold 200,000 EVs.
The president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, Genevieve Cullen, criticized the proposal, saying that plans “to abandon US leadership in energy innovation by gutting federal investment in electrification are catastrophically short-sighted.”
The proposal, she said, would deliver “an enormous market advantage” to competitors like China and threaten US manufacturing and jobs.
The US Treasury in 2024 awarded more than $2 billion in point-of-sale rebates for EVs.
The proposal leaves in place a key battery production tax credit for automakers and battery makers, but a new provision would bar the credit for vehicles produced with components made by some Chinese companies or under a license agreement with Chinese firms.
The provision, which would take effect in 2027, could bar credits for cars powered by Chinese battery technology licensed by American companies such as Ford Motor or Tesla .
House Republicans also propose to kill a loan program that supports the manufacture of certain advanced technology vehicles. It would rescind any unobligated funding and rescind corporate average fuel economy standards and greenhouse gas emission rules for 2027 and beyond. That portion will be taken up by the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Among outstanding loans finalized in President Joe Biden’s last weeks in office are $9.63 billion to a joint venture of Ford Motor and South Korean battery maker SK On for construction of three battery manufacturing plants in Tennessee and Kentucky; $7.54 billion to a joint venture of Chrysler-parent Stellantis and Samsung SDI for two EV lithium-ion battery plants in Indiana; and $6.57 billion to Rivian for a plant in Georgia to begin building smaller, less expensive EVs in 2028.
US military replaces B-2 bombers that were sent amid Middle East tensions
- Experts say that this had put the B-2s in a position to operate in the Middle East
WASHINGTON: The US military is replacing its B-2 bombers with another type of bomber at a base in the Indo-Pacific that was seen as being in an ideal location to operate in the Middle East, US officials told Reuters on Monday. The Pentagon deployed as many as six B-2 bombers in March to a US-British military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, amid a US bombing campaign in Yemen and mounting tensions with Iran.
Experts say that this had put the B-2s, which have stealth technology and are equipped to carry the heaviest US bombs and nuclear weapons, in a position to operate in the Middle East.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the B-2 bombers were being replaced by B-52 bombers.
The Pentagon said it did not comment on force posture adjustments as a matter of policy.
Fresh talks between Iranian and US negotiators to resolve disputes over Tehran’s nuclear program ended in Oman on Sunday, with further negotiations planned. The fourth round of talks took place ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned visit to the Middle East. Trump, who has threatened military action against Iran if diplomacy fails, has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since returning to the White House in January.
Tehran is willing to negotiate some curbs on its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials, but ending its enrichment program or surrendering its enriched uranium stockpile are among what the officials have called “Iran’s red lines that could not be compromised” in the talks. Additionally, Trump announced last week that a deal had been reached to stop bombing Yemen’s Houthi group. The B-2 bombers had been used to carry out strikes against the Iran-backed group.
UN chief warns of ‘painful’ reforms, including staff cuts
- The proposed restructuring within the Secretariat includes merging units from the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) with the Department of Peace Operations (DPO)
UNITED NATIONS, United States: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Monday said reforming the global body will require “painful” changes, including staff reductions, to improve efficiency and deal with chronic budget constraints exacerbated by Trump administration policies.
In March, the secretary-general launched the UN80 initiative to streamline operations.
“Our shared goal has always been to make our organization more efficient, to simplify procedures, eliminate overlaps, and enhance transparency and accountability,” Guterres said Monday during an update to member states.
“The liquidity crisis we now face is not new. But today’s financial and political situation adds even greater urgency to our efforts.”
He warned “we know that some of these changes will be painful for our UN family.”
The proposed restructuring within the Secretariat includes merging units from the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) with the Department of Peace Operations (DPO).
“I believe we’ll be able to eliminate 20 percent of the posts of the two departments,” he said, adding that the level of reduction outlined for DPPA and DPO “must be seen as a reference for the wider UN80 exercise.”
Guterres also raised the possibility of relocating positions from New York and Geneva to less expensive cities.
Member states will have to decide on their own changes.
The internal workload has also stretched the capacity of the UN system “beyond reason,” Guterres said.
“It is as if we have allowed the formalism and quantity of reports and meetings to become ends in themselves. The measure of success is not the volume of reports we generate or the number of meetings we convene,” he said.
Guterres called on member states to make tough decisions.
“Many of you have agreed that this must be the moment to be bold and ambitious. That is what our Organization needs — and that is what our times demand,” he said.
“Make no mistake — uncomfortable and difficult decisions lie ahead. It may be easier — and even tempting — to ignore them or kick the can down the road. But that road is a dead end.”
In a memo seen recently by AFP, an internal working group in charge of the UN80 initiative suggested some major reforms, including merging UN agencies.
Guterres did not directly address those changes but indicated that “clusters” working on similar issues would propose reforms, and potentially some structural changes.
