OPINION:
I’m Anath Hartmann, Washington Times Deputy Commentary Editor. Here’s a brief rundown of some of the columns we’re running this week.
Club for Growth president David McIntosh penned an op-ed for us on what Senate Republicans should do if the Democrats block the bipartisanly popular SAVE America Act, now stalled on the Senate floor: “Make them answer for it.”
The legislation, which polling shows the large majority of voters from both major parties support, would require people to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote and to show ID before casting ballots.
“Senate Republican leadership can force repeated votes, extended floor time and days of debate, during which the Democratic opposition must hold the floor and speak — the talking filibuster,” McIntosh writes. “With the midterms approaching, this is a perfect opportunity to ensure that voters can see exactly where their elected officials stand.”
Next, we have a piece by regular Times contributor and former associate director of national intelligence, Joseph R. DeTrani. He writes that China’s state-owned media has been leveraging the recent Transportation Security Administration pay furor to portray America’s system of government as fundamentally dysfunctional.
“Beijing is using this issue and others to make the case that its system of governance, an autocracy with one man and one party in control, is far superior to the liberal democracy in the U.S.,” he writes. “But there is a reason there is no large-scale migration to China. That’s because people understand that the U.S. is a land of opportunity, with the Constitution and Bill of Rights protecting individual liberties and rights.”
Finally, I wrote on prior authorization, a routine practice in which healthcare insurers deny prescribed medications in an effort to streamline requests and save money. I call it a scam that’s being perpetrated on patients.
“Denial of care equals profit,” I write. “Most people don’t bother pursuing the matter when a prior authorization is denied, likely a testament to how time-consuming and difficult insurers make the whole process. Just one in ten prior authorization requests denied in 2022 were appealed, according to a recent study by the health policy organization KFF.”
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