Editorials from around Pennsylvania

Editorials from around Pennsylvania:

SAVING LIVES WITH NALOXONE SHOULDN’T COST YOU LIFE INSURANCE

In 2012, the opioid crisis started to impact the life of Sharon White, now 53, from Lansdowne, Delaware County. White saw loved ones suffering from addiction and struggling to find resources to get better. She scaled back her commercial real estate business and decided to become a recovery specialist.

White got involved in the effort to expand access to naloxone — a medication that reverses opioid overdose — in the Commonwealth. In 2014, the General Assembly passed a law that allowed bystanders to administer naloxone when they witness an overdose. In 2015, Pennsylvania Surgeon General Dr. Rachel Levine signed a standing order for naloxone that allows anyone to buy naloxone without a prescription.

White went to a Walgreens next to her home, filled the required forms, and bought two doses of naloxone for $130.

A few months later, when White applied for a $50,000 life insurance policy, she was denied. A letter from Minnesota Life, now called Securian Financial, stated: “Our decision is based on your medication Naloxone.” Securian explained to the Inquirer editorial board that historically naloxone was on the prescription history of people who had addiction and that their physician was concerned that they were at risk of overdose.

Times, however, are changing. More than 46,000 people died of an opioid overdose in the U.S. in 2017. Flooding the nation with naloxone has become an integral part of the strategy to prevent overdose deaths. Last April, the surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Jerome Adams, issued an advisory calling on members of the public to obtain naloxone. Both the state and the city are giving out naloxone. In the fall, City Council passed a bill that requires every pharmacy in the city to stock naloxone.

But at the same time government entities are encouraging people to buy naloxone, reports suggest private insurers are flagging good Samaritans as high risk and denying them life insurance coverage.

The issue first surfaced in Boston in December when WBUR, Boston’s National Public Radio affiliate, reported that a nurse at Boston Medical Center’s addiction treatment program was denied life insurance because she bought naloxone. Following the reporting, the Massachusetts Division of Insurance instructed insurers to not deny insurance based on naloxone without further investigation.

In Pennsylvania, the state Insurance Department says it has not received any complaints on this issue — yet. That might be because some companies, such as Securian, changed their practices after the WBUR story. But as more people buy naloxone, without formal guidance from the state, people could be denied insurance down the road.

Instead of waiting for complaints, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department should be proactive. Rumors about insurance denial based on naloxone could discourage its purchase when it is needed most. Preventing this problem could be as simple as issuing guidance modeled after Massachusetts’.

Sharon White kept trying to get insurance. She was rejected a few more times, but after spending hours on the phone with underwriters, last week she finally got the policy that she wanted. She is doing her part to save lives. By issuing a simple guidance, the Insurance Department can do its part.

__The Philadelphia Inquirer

__Online: https://bit.ly/2GufE33

LET CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR CHOOSE RUNNING MATE

It’s time to repair a defect in Pennsylvania’s electoral system. While voters in both parties made what could be called the Stack glitch a nonissue in last year’s election, it remains an unfortunate possibility that Pennsylvania again could have a lieutenant governor who’s no ally of the state’s top executive.

Nominees for governor and lieutenant governor now are chosen separately in the primaries and then run as a team in November. In recent years, this has led to pairings of candidates who have not worked well together: Gov. Ed Rendell and the late Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll; and, more notably, Gov. Tom Wolf and former Lt. Gov. Mike Stack.

Democratic voters ousted Stack in the 2018 primary, ridding the state of a second couple whose treatment of staff at the lieutenant governor’s residence led to an investigation.

While Wolf did not choose a favorite among the crowded field to be his No. 2 last year, his discomfort with Stack was clear. Berks native and then-Braddock Mayor John Fetterman beat Stack and three others to be Wolf’s running mate.

And Republicans chose Jeff Bartos, also a Berks native and GOP nominee Scott Wagner’s pre-primary pick for lieutenant governor.

The argument for making sure the lieutenant governor has the trust of the governor is twofold. First, voters should be able to feel confident that a successor will pursue the same agenda as that of the governor they elected. And the lieutenant governor’s $166,291 salary should have a chance to be earned beyond the office’s constitutional responsibilities of breaking ties as president of the Senate and serving as chairman of the Board of Pardons.

A lieutenant governor with the governor’s trust clearly will have more chances to contribute than one with whom the governor would rather not be seen. While it is hard to remember a single extra duty carried out by Stack, Wolf already has assigned Fetterman an important policy project: getting a feel for Pennsylvanians’ views on legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. Whatever one thinks of decriminalizing pot, having the lieutenant governor earn his money by listening to the people beats seeing him and his wife investigated for their behavior amid the luxuries of a taxpayer-funded mansion in Lebanon County.

State Sen. David G. Argall, a Schuylkill County Republican who represents part of Berks County, has offered a sensible fix to the problem of mismatched tickets for governor and lieutenant governor.

His proposed constitutional amendment, which is poised for action on the Senate floor, would allow each nominee for governor to choose a running mate, subject to the approval of the candidate’s political party, within 90 days of the general election. This would be in line with the sensible tradition of presidential candidates choosing their running mates and likely lead to better administrations and smoother transitions.

“Pennsylvania’s residents,” Argall said, “deserve to have their two top leaders of the executive branch function as a team in order to put the best interests of Pennsylvanians first rather than jeopardizing this mission by a lack of unity and shared vision.”

Without a first approval of the amendment this year or next, a system ripe for dysfunction will remain in place for the next election for governor in 2022. State lawmakers should act now to help prevent that possibility.

__The Reading Eagle

__Online: https://bit.ly/2Uqr0cb

SAFE 2 SAY SOMETHING PROGRAM ANOTHER WAY TO KEEP STUDENTS SAFE

Twenty years ago this week, two students walked into Columbine High School and killed 12 of their peers and one teacher.

Twenty-one others were injured.

After Columbine, and after the other school shootings that followed, there was talk about some of the shooters — quiet concerns brushed aside or subtle signs that they may have meant to do harm. Sometimes, we learned, there had been outright threats of violence made by them before the shootings occurred.

The Safe 2 Say Something program implemented earlier this year in Pennsylvania aims to give those concerns a voice.

Started in January and rolled out into all of the state’s public, private and charter schools, the program encourages confidential reporting about concerns.

Users have three options for reporting: a Safe 2 Say Something app that can be loaded onto mobile devices; the safe2saysomething website at www.safe2saypa.org; or the hotline phone number, 844-723-2729.

Anyone can send a tip to Safe 2 Say Something, and that information is funneled to the attorney general’s crisis center that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The crisis center and its operations are funded by the state attorney general’s office. Sandy Hook Promise, a national nonprofit founded and led by several family members who loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Connecticut, in 2012, has paid for the training and education.

When a tip is submitted, the crisis center reviews it and sends all submissions to school administrators and/or law enforcement for intervention.

In addition to working toward identifying potential sources of school violence, the Safe 2 Say Something program also offers an opportunity for students to report concerns about others they believe may engage in self-harm. The program reported 70% of those to commit suicide reveal their plans to another or gave some other warning sign.

Some local superintendents said they’ve received only a few tips from the program since it started; however, the attorney general’s office reported that in his first month and a half of operation, 7,070 tips came in.

Almost one-third of those were serious enough to warrant reporting to school officials and local police.

School administrators and police recognize there will be those who decide to make false reports to the system. So far, officials said, that has accounted for less than 1% of all of the tips received.

Perhaps our students have learned something. Last year was a terrible one, locally, for bomb and gun threats. Far too often, we found ourselves writing about a district dismissing early or canceling because one of those had occurred.

Our area district attorneys and police made it clear quickly that those disrupting classes in that manner would be prosecuted.

We are heartened to see that this year has produced far fewer of those threats.

While we all may wish that the need for such a program didn’t exist, the sad reality is that it does. Students hear regularly the importance of reporting their concerns.

Offering them another way to make a report, especially one they may make confidentially, could prompt them to offer up details about troubling behavior they see in their peers and prevent the senseless loss of more young lives.

__Uniontown Herald-Standard

__Online: https://bit.ly/2Xvt5FV

‘OUR HEARTS ARE WITH FRANCE’

Committed Christians believe in an all-powerful God whose majesty and beauty cannot be comprehended, much less matched.

Yet on rare occasions, humans are moved to incredible feats of creation as testaments of the depth of their faith.

More than 850 years ago, on an island in the Seine River at Paris, an attempt at such creation began. For generations, thousands of craftsmen, using only hand tools for the work and paper on which to make engineering calculations, labored. It took a full century for most of what they attempted to be completed, another for it to be pronounced finished.

Thus was the Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris — known to much of the world as Notre Dame de Paris — brought into existence.

On Monday, as crowds gathered in the street, many singing hymns, the great cathedral was ravished by fire.

From throughout the world, from people of many faiths, words of sorrow and condolence flowed into France. A high-ranking Sunni Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb of Egypt, said what many were feeling: “Our hearts are with our brothers in France.”

Notre Dame can never be restored to what it was, through the French vow they will try. For one thing, as a forestry expert has noted, there are no trees on the continent big enough to replace the massive timbers that once supported the cathedral’s roof.

Perhaps more pertinent, the craftsmanship — the blood, sweat, tears and prayers — that went into Notre Dame cannot be replicated. All that is gone forever.

Offers of money, resources and expertise already are flooding into Paris. No doubt many in our instant-gratification culture hope that within a year or two — a decade, perhaps — the cathedral can be restored to the appearance it had on Sunday.

Let us hope the French reject that sort of timetable. The kind of craftsmanship required is not just engineering expertise. It is attempting to replicate what, in important ways, was an act of worship — an offering of the very best the French had to offer.

Seldom do we as human beings in modern times display such dedication.

The loss this week, then, was more than timber and stone.

The question now is whether we human beings of the 21st century have what it takes to rebuild and replace all that was lost in Paris.

__The Altoona Mirror

__Online: https://bit.ly/2ZlgXst

POLICE PARTNER WITH PENNSYLVANIA AGENCIES TO PREVENT DEATHS FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Hampden Township Chief of Police Steven Junkin will tell you one of the most difficult and dangerous situations his officers face on a daily basis is responding to calls of domestic violence.

From 2008 to 2017, more than 1,200 people died as a result of domestic violence in Pennsylvania. The majority of those tragic deaths were abused women, but the number also included men, children and even law enforcement

When police respond to a call of domestic violence, they don’t know if they will step into a home where the attacker is out of control and has a gun or whether the victim is out of control, has found a weapon and is ready to use it.

It’s not unknown to have both the attacker and the victim turn on police, who find themselves in the middle of a potentially deadly family feud.

The dangers only increase when children are involved but what can make matters frustratingly worse is when the victim doesn’t realize she needs help.

And all too frequently, police have been unable to identify signs of an impending tragedy before it’s too late.

In the past five years, Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies have had some new tools to help assess the danger in a domestic violence situation and summon professional help.

Law enforcement officials such as Chief Justin believe the Lethality Assessment Program (LAP) that began in a few counties in Pennsylvania in 2012 may have saved thousands of lives by identifying those most in danger of being killed.

LAP started in Maryland 2008 when authorities discovered that only four percent of people who die in domestic violence incidents had sought help through a hotline, shelter or other program. They were confident if victims could connect to professionals in time, it would prevent untold tragedies.

Seems they were right. In the first five years the program was implemented in Maryland, the number of deaths due to domestic violence decreased by 32 percent.

The program can’t take sole credit for the decrease, but authorities are confident it contributed greatly to the decline in deaths as police began to refer more and more victims to agencies for help.

Those numbers were good enough for Pennsylvania and other states to give the program a try. Now, many police agencies, such as Hampden Township, are using LAP to better assess the seriousness of a domestic violence situation and summon professional help.

Cumberland and Dauphin Counties are among more than 50 Pennsylvania counties and more than 300 police agencies now using the LAP with promising results, although there has not been a statewide assessment like that in Maryland.

“There’s no doubt that lives have been saved as a result of connecting victims with domestic violence services,” PCADV reports.

In 2012, the organization brought the program to Pennsylvania, with grant funding from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD). LAP provides police a simple but effective series of questions to identify “high-risk” victims - those most in danger of being killed - and to contact domestic violence experts for support.

Since 2012, more than 10,000 “high risk” domestic violence victims have been identified and referred to experts for immediate and long-term assistance.

Terri Lynn Hamrick, a long-time advocate for victims of domestic violence and a board member of PCADV, lauds police for their willingness to work with professionals and for taking concrete action to prevent deaths.

LAP equips officers to better assess domestic violence situations by asking victims 11 key questions, such as:

Has he/she ever used a weapon against you or threatened you with a weapon?

Has he/she threatened to kill you or your children?

Do You think he/she might try to kill you?

Yes answers to these questions would be a pretty clear sign that professional help is urgent.

“I really feel this program has gone a long way in showing victims what dangers they face,” Chief Junkin said. But what is even more important, he said, the program helps “to ensure the best chances of survivability and persistence in pursuing charges against abusers.”

LAP is an example of how non-profits, police and government can work together, bringing their individual expertise and resources to tackle the most pressing problems in our communities.

“From the officer to Domestic Violence Services, to the District Attorney’s Office Victim Advocates, to Mid-Penn Legal Services, to the prison and the District Attorney, himself,” Junkin said, “they all work in concert . . . as best we can . . . in trying to achieve the best outcomes for victims of domestic violence.”

Everyone who has had anything to do with LAP should be commended for treating domestic violence as a serious scourge in our society, and for taking aggressive action to do something about it.

__Harrisburg Patriot News

__Online: https://bit.ly/2PhA9D2