If laws or benefit rules create a disincentive for people to marry, the government should look at changing them. It shouldn’t discourage marriage. But a state audit released this week found “little evidence” that such rules significantly influence decisions about whether to marry. Some state lawmakers who are promoting marriage as a solution to societal problems didn’t like that finding and criticized the messenger — the state’s Legislative Division of Post Audit. But the benefits’ impact often is so small that it isn’t a major factor in most marriage decisions. It’s also questionable how healthy and stable a marriage would be if it were based on a benefits chart.
“This is a private-insurance approach to make the private-insurance market work,” Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger said about the federal health care reform law. “If the law does go away, we still have a dysfunctional health insurance system that we have to fix.” Praeger contends that the state should prepare for the law rather than just hope it is overturned. She also has said the Brownback administration was wrong in claiming that a $31.5 million federal grant for setting up an insurance exchange came with too many strings attached and that the exchange would determine whether end-of-life treatments are too costly.
Bob Dole is an excellent choice for the first bronze plaque along the new Kansas Walk of Honor in Topeka. During his long career in public service, the 88-year-old former U.S. senator from Russell and 1996 GOP presidential nominee was known not only for his blunt Kansas humor but for the sort of pragmatism and statesmanship that are all too rare in Washington, D.C., these days. Dole’s plaque will be unveiled at 10 a.m. Friday on the southeast corner of the Statehouse lawn. As many as three of the $2,000 plaques will be installed each year on the Kansas Walk of Honor, which, as Gov. Sam Brownback said, “will raise awareness of the accomplishments of Kansans and help begin a discussion about civic duty.”
If laws or benefit rules create a disincentive for people to marry, the government should look at changing them. It shouldn’t discourage marriage. But a state audit released this week found “little evidence” that such rules significantly influence decisions about whether to marry. Some state lawmakers who are promoting marriage as a solution to societal problems didn’t like that finding and criticized the messenger — the state’s Legislative Division of Post Audit. But the benefits’ impact often is so small that it isn’t a major factor in most marriage decisions. It’s also questionable how healthy and stable a marriage would be if it were based on a benefits chart.
