ACA Not Good Enough for All Americans

Too many Americans still can’t afford health insurance even after passage of the Affordable Care Act and four million have lost their subsidies on the through Exchanges over the last four years. A recently released study by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that particularly older and rural folks find it hard to afford individual insurance whether on the Affordable Care Act Exchange markets or not.

Part of the problem is that Exchange subsidies cut off federal assistance for premiums at incomes at 400 percent of the poverty line, or nearly $49,000 for an individual and just over $100,000 for a family of four. Rather than phasing out by reducing the subsidy gradually the subsidy just disappears, lending the phenomenon the name "subsidy cliff." The Kaiser study uses this example: "On average across the U.S., a 40-year-old making $45,000 would pay $227 a month (6% of their income) for a subsidized bronze exchange plan, whereas the same person making $50,000 would pay $340 a month (8% of their income) for the same plan without a subsidy."

And if you’re older it goes from bad to worse: "a 27-year-old making $50,000 would pay 7% of their income in premiums for the average lowest-cost plan nationally, whereas a 60-year-old making the same income would pay 17% of their income in premiums. Even at an income of $70,000 (577% of the poverty level), a 60-year-old would have to pay 12% of income for a low-cost plan on average."

Rural areas get hit even harder since health insurance there is even more expensive. The Kaiser study provides this example of a 60-year-old in almost any county in Nebraska, earning $50,000 and paying between 30 percent and 50 percent of their income in premiums. And that's for the least expensive, ACA-compliant plans.

There are several ways to deal with the problem. One way is to eliminate the subsidy cliff by adjusting the subsidy so that the premium paid by the insured is never more that 6% of their income. That’s an expensive solution. A better way would be to expand Medicare to cover people 50 and older. Even better is the Medicare For All Act of 2019 introduced last week by Representatives Debbie Dingell, Pramila Jayapal, and co-sponsored by over 100 other members of Congress.

Our current healthcare system in the United States is ineffective, inefficient and outrageously expensive. Around 70 million Americans are uninsured or cannot afford the costs of their co-pays and deductibles. The quality of our healthcare is worse than other industrialized countries with lower life expectancy in the U.S. than other nations, and a much higher infant mortality. The U.S. spends more money per capita on healthcare than any other industrialized nation in part because we waste hundreds of billions of dollars every year on unnecessary administrative costs like insurance CEO salaries in the millions of dollars, while healthcare industry executives measure success in profits, instead of patient care.

When the Franklin Roosevelt administration created Social Security conservatives fought it but the lives of millions of older Americans were improved immediately and seniors have continued to benefit from it 80 years later. When Medicare was passed under the leadership of Lyndon Johnson conservatives fought it, Ronald Reagan even made speeches calling it socialism, but again millions of older Americans lives were improved and seniors today recognize their lives would be much worse without it. Conservatives are fighting Medicare for All but it will improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans and save us and our country billions of dollars at the same time.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - March 8, 2019

Democrats Know the Solution is Medicare for All

In 2009 when the Democratic controlled Congress passed and President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, there was hope that nearly all Americans would soon be able to access healthcare, especially preventive care. It was expected that millions who had previously suffered, thousands who would have died and tens of thousands who would have gone bankrupt or heavily into debt would be able to breathe a sigh of relief. Some few claims by proponents turned out to be exaggerated but on the whole millions did indeed get health insurance at a price they could afford and had access to doctors and prescription medication previously unavailable to them. Even before the ink was dry on President Obama’s signature, Republicans in Congress and state governments began working to prevent Americans from having affordable healthcare. Governor Rick Perry declared that Texas would not expand Medicaid and thus denied one million Texans, many of them children the opportunity to see a doctor and receive adequate treatment.

If you’ve listened to their excuses for their behavior it becomes quite clear that in the conservative mind only those who have jobs with sufficient income even deserve the benefit of healthcare. Now they don’t say it outright but that’s really what it boils down to. If you get sick or have an accident you can get as much healthcare as you can pay for. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, it just matters how much you’re paid for it.

President Obama’s Affordable Care Act was an attempt to satisfy the conservative mind by retaining the capitalist model of the existing system and even making it more profitable for insurers, as they’d have more customers, while taking care of a far greater portion of the American public. It works fairly well at what it was intended to do and would work better if Republicans including the current White House resident would stop trying to break it.

The experiment has also shown us that the capitalist approach to healthcare is not the solution that Republicans claim it is. Private insurance companies drive up the cost of care in a number of ways including the right to take 20% of premiums for themselves. In addition they cost the medical profession significant amounts due to arcane billing procedures and delays in payments. Worse still private insurers often make difficult to actually receive the care we think we’re paying for by denying the treatment the doctor prescribed for any number of reasons. When Republicans were fighting the Affordable Care Act they complained about unelected bureaucrats getting between you and your doctor, I find it telling that they had no such concerns about the flunkies of profit seeking corporations getting between you and your doctor.

Democrats in Congress and the Texas legislature have come around to an idea that many in the public already had which is that the solution to the high and often unaffordable cost of healthcare is to make it a part of what you get for your tax dollars just like every other industrialized nation on earth and even places like Iraq.

In Congress, Democrats are actively pushing for a bill known as Medicare for All while in the Texas legislature we can look forward to something similar. Both bills guarantee that every resident will receive comprehensive healthcare services. Individuals will have free choice of licensed health professionals and services including vision and dental care as well as home healthcare, adult day care, and hospice.

Healthcare for millions more Americans at lower cost, what other reason do you need to vote for Democrats in November?

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 16, 2018

Highlights of and Link to the 2018 Texas Democratic Party Platform

Criminal Justice

Bail Reform

The Texas Democratic Party Supports amending Texas Constitution Art. 1 § 11, § 13 and Texas Code of Criminal 17.01 and 17.02 to create a pre-trial release system that:

·         presumes release on personal recognizance for people charged with non-violent offenses who have little or no criminal history;

·         requires immediate release of low-risk defendants under the least restrictive conditions necessary to guarantee appearance at court proceedings;

Re­entry

Texas Democrats support programs that decrease recidivism by providing ex-offenders with a pathway back to productive participation in society. Texas Democrats support reducing recidivism by:

·         increasing access to rehabilitation and re-entry programs, with a special emphasis on reducing drug use among people released from prison, including the reversal of policies that deny student loans and grants to those who have completed sentences for drug felonies; and

Mass Incarceration

·         ending the practice of sending poor people to jail or prison for inability to pay fines and court costs;

·         redirecting mentally ill offenders from the criminal justice system to treatment programs when the risk to public safety is low;

Eliminating Private Prisons

·         amending the Texas Constitution to require state and local governments to directly operate and perform all core services at prisons, jails, and detention facilities within the State of Texas, and expressly prohibit the use of private prisons, jails, and detention facilities within the State of Texas;

Democracy

·         existing voter protection policies under the federal Voting Rights Act and the Texas Voting Rights Act, and restoration of the federal preclearance policies in the Voting Rights Act that were overturned by the Supreme Court;

·         instituting vote by mail for all elections – federal, state and local;

·         the creation of a nonpartisan redistricting commission to end racial and political gerrymandering in our redistricting process;

·         a constitutional amendment to eliminate the electoral college and award the presidency to the winner of the nationwide popular vote, and failing that, we urge all states to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, so that candidates must campaign everywhere and not just in swing states;

·         a return to paper ballots because they are more secure, much less expensive, and are the only method that can provide a truly auditable vote count;

·         the report and recommendations of the Unity Reform Commission to the Democratic National Committee as a carefully considered and eloquent prescription for strengthening democracy for all American citizens in general elections and Democratic Party nominations.

Ethics in Government

·         requiring elected officials throughout the state, including local or county officials, to file a personal financial statement to allow for more transparency; and

·         requiring every candidate for the President of the United States to disclose their complete federal tax return and, upon election, place private holdings in a blind trust for divestment.

Good Jobs Build Strong Communities

·         Every American should have a right to a job; therefore, federally funded jobs paying at least a living wage with health insurance and other typical benefits on projects selected by the states and local governments must be available in or near every community.

Healthcare for All

The Texas Democratic Party asserts that healthcare is a human right, not a privilege for the few. Texas Democrats recognize that the health and well-being of Texas residents cannot be based on decisions made by non-healthcare professionals whose primary concern is the financial well-being of a corporation rather than the well-being of an individual.

·         support the inclusion of a “Single Payer Option” as an addition to the plans currently offered under the state exchange systems;

Cannabis Reform

·         Texas legislation to legalize possession and use of cannabis and its derivatives and to regulate its use, production and sale as is successfully done in Colorado, Washington and other States;

Gun Violence Prevention

·         Closing loopholes that allow guns to be sold or traded without passing a mandatory and thorough background check;

·         Enacting legislation to require all individuals charged with domestic violence, human trafficking, sexual assault, domestic or foreign terrorism, stalking or any violent felony to temporarily surrender all weapons and ammunition in their possession to law enforcement pending adjudication of their case(s);

·         Enacting sensible gun laws to curtail the availability of weapons with extended ammunition magazines, including rapid-fire, magazine-fed, military-style assault weapons;

Energy and Environment

A Moratorium on Fracking

·         a moratorium on new fracking wells;

·         set a goal of shutting down existing fracking wells by 2026;

·         set a goal of ending the practice of injecting wastewater by 2023;

Clean and Available Water

• Access to clean drinking water is a human right.

Immigration

·         strongly oppose the Trump Administration’s policy abusing children by of separating children from their parents at the southern border and denounce housing children in tent cities;

·         strongly oppose “tender age” shelters for infants and small children;

·         strongly oppose the Trump Administration so called “zero tolerance” approach to immigration;

·         strongly oppose the Trump Administration’s policy to no longer recognize asylum claims or Temporary Protected Status for refugees fleeing forced gang recruitment and violence perpetrated by gangs and refugees fleeing domestic violence;

·         support securing and protecting our border, while treating asylum seekers humanely;

·         strongly oppose any type of bans based on religious affiliation or country of origin;

·         strongly oppose efforts to build a border wall of any size and the unrealistic claim, and possibly abandoned claim, that a foreign country will pay for a border wall;

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NdguJq-4AhdyAz4WLzo_B-9HjMzJb1mS

A Difference Worthy of Voting

I’ve often heard non-voters say that they don’t bother to vote because all politicians are alike or it doesn’t matter who wins. Of course they’re always wrong but more so this year as there’s a tremendous contrast between Democrats and Republicans right now.

Congressional Democrats are working to put more Americans to work and assure them of better lives. Republicans in Congress are proposing to reduce spending on Social Security and Medicare to cover the deficit they created by giving 80% of tax cuts to millionaires. Most Americans aren’t noticing any difference in their take home pay.

There are two ways to cut that spending, they can tighten eligibility rules by raising the minimum age yet again or they can reduce benefits. Every time we raise retirement age we hurt lower income people more that higher income folks because it’s the lower income workers who do the jobs that wear out their bodies fastest. Raising the eligibility age for Medicare will financially hurt those with health conditions because they’ll be forced to stay on private insurance which will charge them higher premiums due to the care they need. As to cutting benefits, it’s already near impossible to retire on social security alone and still pay for health care, housing and other necessities.

Congressional Democrats on the other hand are proposing expanding Medicare to cover everyone which could cut premiums an average of 13%. Medicare has a 2% overhead rate while insurance companies are allowed 15% over the cost of medical care provided. Democrats also propose dealing with the high cost of medications and medical devices which will help control the overall cost of health care. State Democrats are expected to introduce legislation to create a Texas version of Medicare for All. Considering that Texas has the highest number of uninsured citizens in the country that would help a lot of folks. There will be a rally and march in support of both ideas at Hemisphair Park in San Antonio tomorrow at 10am.

Democrats also have proposed legislation to put more Americans to work called the Jobs for All Act and there is another proposal in discussion to create a federal job guarantee so that anyone who wants a job will have one that pays a living wage and provides benefits like paid vacations and sick leave. Democrats are also pushing to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage and index it for inflation so that workers don’t see their wages fall behind and have to wait a decade or more before action is taken to restore their purchasing power.

Actions speak louder than words and nearly every action Republicans have taken since Trump took office has harmed Americans in one way or another. Democrats are fighting to improve all our lives by assuring that every American has access to health care, every worker earns a living wage and can retire with dignity at a reasonable age, and anyone who wants to work has the opportunity whether or not the private sector needs them.

There is a huge difference between the parties and their candidates and that difference makes it worth the effort to vote. If you have moved recently take a few minutes to update your voter registration, remind family and friends who have moved to do the same. We can change the direction of the country in November but we have to start now.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 15, 2018

CHIP Funding Fail

The party claiming to represent “family values” also known as the Republican Party is once again showing its hypocrisy. Nearly two months ago the funding for the decades old Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) expired and the funding bill Republicans in the House passed would simply take the $8 billion a year from Medicaid and more from other public health programs to pay for it. Senate Republicans knew that wasn’t going to fly and have even filed bill that continues funding without sticking it to the poor and other vulnerable Americans but there have been no hearings on the bill, nor have they scheduled a vote on it.

There’s no telling when Republican leaders will get around to pursuing a funding solution for CHIP but it looks like they’re going to hold the lives and health of 9 million poor children and pregnant women, more than 400,000 of them Texans, as hostage to get concessions like budget cuts from Democrats. In the interim, 11 states expect to run out of funds by the end of December and are preparing to send letters telling the parents of these children that if they get sick don’t expect them to receive medical care. How’s that for a Christmas present? Ebenezer Scrooge would be so proud.

The CHIP program only covers persons under age 19 and pregnant women who are either citizens or legal U.S. residents. If the family has only one child the total annual income must be less than $24,473 so we’re talking about folks on very low incomes.

CHIP covers primary health care, prescriptions, mental health, vision, physical and occupational therapies and dental care for children under 19. Additionally women receive CHIP coverage for prenatal and postpartum services.

Some states have enough funding to last a few more months but some don’t. Several states have already made emergency requests for funds to hold it over until February by which time they hope Congress gets around to deciding if the program will be retained.

The Senate and House are now very busy working toward providing massive tax cuts to billionaires while claiming they’re going to put more money in the pocket of working and middle class Americans. Of course, tax breaks for billionaires didn’t do anything to help working families under Reagan nor under George W. Bush. Republican leaders must think Americans are like Charlie Brown to their Lucy promising to hold the ball for him to kick this time.

One of the provisions getting a lot of attention will allow deductions for private jets. This is the same bill also takes away the deduction for school supplies that teachers purchase for their classrooms so it’s clear who Republicans really care about and it isn’t you and me.

CHIP has had bi-partisan support since its inception, yet this time around Republican leaders are so focused on the tax cuts they promised to their wealthy benefactors they just can’t find the energy to do the right thing. I guess we shouldn’t really be surprised at the heartless greed exhibited by congressional Republicans, after all they’re still trying to gut the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid. Apparently they’re idea of right to life doesn’t include actual living people.

Published in the Seguin Gazette, November 25, 2017

It's Not About Healthcare, It's About Campaign Contributions

Once again the Republican Party is leading the charge to take away access to health care from 30 million or so Americans. The leadership is attempting to rush the bill through with minimum scrutiny in order to meet a September 30 deadline for acting with only Republican votes.

When eight months and countless hours of hearings in multiple committees in both the House and Senate had been held prior to the vote on the Affordable Care Act Republicans screamed that the bill was being voted on before anyone knew what was contained in it. Now that Republicans control congress their efforts to take away health care from tens of millions of Americans, 11 million of whom are so poor they qualify for Medicaid, there will be only one hearing and it will be in the Homeland Security Committee which has never held a hearing on healthcare or much of anything else that isn’t about security from terrorism. There will be no witnesses testifying other than the senators who developed the legislation, so no one will hear from health policy experts or the people who will be affected. Make no mistake about it, this is a backroom deal and the goal is to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who don’t need or deserve those breaks.

Unlike Texas, about half the states accepted federal funds and expanded Medicaid. Some of those states are represented by Republican Senators that have already stated that they will vote to take away that funding. Just eliminating Medicaid expansion means 11 million Americans will lose their healthcare. Sure they can still go to an emergency room when they’re really sick or injured but that treatment only covers stopping them from dying right then it doesn’t cover prescription anti-biotics or blood pressure medicine and it doesn’t cover follow up care to insure that a wound hasn’t become infected.

Even Republican governors like John Kasich of Ohio and Bill Walker of Alaska oppose the repeal because they know that doing so will hurt their constituents. Walker is seen as key to getting the bill passed this time as he’s believed to have influence over Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of the three Republicans to vote no last time.

You’d think that at least some Republican Senators might shy away from voting for something that will hurt their constituents so severely but what you don’t know is that a network of wealthy donors has made repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the tax breaks that depend on it a condition of them providing $300 million to $400 million for the 2018 election cycle. In other words no tax breaks, no campaign donations. If Congress fails to repeal the network, led by the Koch brothers, will likely spend much of those funds on primary challengers and make an example of those Republicans who stood in the way.

That’s the problem with our campaign finance system; it’s obvious that these wealthy donors expect to get what they want for their money and just as obvious that our elected leaders are willing to give it to them but it isn’t illegal, even though it is antithetical to a healthy democracy.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette September 22, 2017

In the last presidential election Donald Trump ran a faux populist campaign that fooled just enough people in the right states to win. Just six months into his term we can already see that he is not who he claimed to be. He claimed to have a healthcare plan that would cover more people at lower cost when in fact he had no plan at all.

The United States is the only developed country that doesn’t provide routine healthcare to all its citizens. In the last week or so the real populist group Our Revolution, a Bernie Sanders campaign spinoff, announced its Summer for Progress project which includes providing good healthcare to all Americans. The group is supporting HR 676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act filed by long time supporter John Conyers.

Our Revolution knows that there is more to be done than just insuring that the sick get the treatment they need. It is unacceptable that a person should work a full time job and still live in poverty so Our Revolution is promoting the Raise the Wage Act, HR 15, which would raise the minimum wage. Remember as it stands now our tax dollars subsidize the profits of some of America’s most profitable companies, think Walmart, by providing benefits like food stamps and housing assistance to their employees whom they pay poverty wages.

Back in the 1960’s a high school education would enable a worker to get a job that would lead them to a middle class life but that hasn’t been possible in decades yet attaining a college education is impossible for too many Americans due to the high costs. I can still remember television ads for the United Negro College Fund which used the tag line “A mind is a terrible thing to waste”. That idea is as true today as it ever was and applies to even more people. Keep in mind that one of reasons that companies use when applying to bring in foreign workers is that there aren’t enough Americans with the necessary skills here in the U.S. If we educated our citizens we might find that wasn’t the case so Our Revolution is promoting the College for All Act, HR 1880 which would pay the tuition and fees for any American who attends a two year or four year college.

Today many Texans think they’re registering to vote when they get a drivers license or update it but even though they mark the box the Department of Public Safety doesn’t always forward the information to the Secretary of State so the person remains unregistered and when they show up at the polls they’re unable to vote. A federal lawsuit was filed last year over this but that’s not enough, it’s time we require every state to automatically register voters who pass through their drivers license offices so Our Revolution is promoting the Automatic Voter Registration Act, HR 2840 which would do just that.

While these issues and more are important right now we have an even larger, worldwide problem looming over us and that’s global climate change. It is now a certainty that the next 50 years will see more frequent crop failures due to longer, deeper droughts. We’ll see more frequent, more intense hurricanes. In order to minimize the damage we have to stop wrecking the environment soon so Our Revolution is supporting congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard in developing a Climate Change bill.

Join us 10am Saturday at Hemisfair Park in support of Medicare for All.

Published in the Seguin Gazette July 28, 2017

Are We Terrorists or Christians?

In 2001 the entire country was up in arms after the attack on 9/11 that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. Thousands of people, rich and poor, teenagers and 30 somethings volunteered to join our military and risk their lives in order to take the battle to the terrorists.

This week the Congressional Budget Office reported that the Senate healthcare bill will cause 22 million Americans to lose their health insurance. We know from studies done after the release of the similar House bill which causes 23 million to lose their insurance that between 10,000 and 30,000 of those folks will then die unnecessarily.

Even taking the low number that’s more than three times as many people dying every year than who died in the 9/11 attack. We went to war over that attack. We spent trillions of dollars to fight that war on the basis of preventing another attack. Yet now, 16 years later, our elected leaders are willing to allow 10,000 mostly poor people to die every year in order to give rich people a tax break. Not only that but thousands more will go bankrupt, losing their homes and everything they’ve ever worked for.

How are we any better than the terrorists if we lie down and take it when the Donald Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress deny children healthcare simply because their parents are too poor to pay for it? How are we better than the terrorists if we accept that grandmothers will be turned out of the nursing homes that provide the medical care they need because their families don’t have the resources to pay for it? How are we any better than the terrorists if we continue to allow sick people to suffer and die to save a few dollars on our taxes?

I frequently hear claims that this is a Christian nation most often by some Republican elected official. If you believe that, how to you reconcile that with denying hardworking people and their families life saving healthcare? I can’t make that connection because the nuns who taught me at St. Lawrence the Martyr and the brothers who taught me at Archbishop Rummel made it very clear that “when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!"

The majority of Americans don’t want what John Cornyn wants to pass of on us. We disagree with Ted Cruz that the bill isn’t tough enough. Most Americans want something better than the Affordable Care Act not something worse. There is a better replacement available that most Americans do support. The replacement is called Medicare for All, or single payer. Medicare could be everyone’s health insurance plan whether a new born or a great-grandmother, sick or healthy, rich or poor. It wouldn’t matter if got cancer after the company you worked for went out of business or moved the factory to China because your health insurance wouldn’t be attached to your employer. You’d never be in the situation where you or your child got sick when you didn’t have insurance.

If America is really a Christian nation shouldn’t we start acting like one?

Trumpcare and what's wrong with it

The Republicans finally unveiled the replace part of Repeal and Replace of the Affordable Care Act which is sure to become known as Trumpcare. It should come as no surprise that Trumpcare cuts funding for Medicaid and Exchange subsidies in order to give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest among us. If you earn in the top 1% or above $450,000 a year your tax break will be $33,000. If you earn in the top one tenth of 1% or above $1,695,000 annually then your tax break will be $190,000. Just about everyone else comes out on the short end of the stick.

That’s right in order to give tax breaks to people who don’t need them Trumpcare will cause upwards of 14 million people to lose their healthcare immediately and within the next six years 24 million will likely be without healthcare. Trump and his Republican acolytes in congress want to smear the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office with claims that they’re over-estimating the number of people who will lose their health insurance coverage but even if they’re estimate is twice as bad as reality that’s still 7 million people losing healthcare immediately and 12 million within a few years. How is that not disaster?

Trump has repeatedly stated that Americans should look forward to his plan because it will cover more people for less money and provide better coverage. Trumpcare fails on all three counts. The bill cuts subsidies by more than two thirds for many people meaning to get the same coverage on the exchange a 60 year old person living in a rural area will pay as much as $9,000 more than they do now. That’s why the AARP opposes the Trumpcare.

The bill eliminates funding for the Medicaid expansion which will cut 10 million low income Americans out of healthcare. That won’t be noticed in Texas because Republicans like John Kuempel wouldn’t vote to accept the federal money to expand Medicaid in the first place meaning that nearly one million Texans have gone without healthcare unnecessarily.

Trumpcare fails on providing better coverage since in order to lower premiums the bill lets insurers write barebones policies which don’t cover things like: prescription drugs, laboratory services like x-rays and blood tests, outpatient care you get without being admitted to a hospital, emergency services, pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care (both before and after birth), mental health care like counseling and psychotherapy, rehabilitative services and devices to help people with injuries, disabilities, or chronic conditions gain or recover mental and physical skills, preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management, or pediatric oral and vision care. That’s why the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association oppose the bill.

Trumpcare isn’t about making life better for you and me, it’s all about providing tax breaks for the very wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else. Ripping healthcare away from millions of Americans will not only mean they’ll be sicker it means many will die unnecessarily and that’s immoral.

Trump lied about his healthcare bill and he’s still lying about it, that makes him #donthecon. The only question is; will the American people push back and tell congress to kill this bill before it kills them?

Published in the Seguin Gazette March 17, 2017