Harvey Peeler

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a South Carolina soldier supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Sgt. Aaron M. Arthur, 25, of Lake City, died March 8 north of Al Kut, Iraq, of injuries sustained during a vehicle roll-over. He was assigned to the 203rd Brigade Support Battalion, attached to the First Battalion, 10th Field Artillery Regiment, Third Brigade Combat Team, Third Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Ga.

Such notifications happened in South Carolina 10 times in the past year. Families like the Fowlkes of Gaffney still struggle with the grief. Dominick Fowlkes wrote about it after his brother Lance Corporal Christopher Fowlkes was mortally wounded in Afghanistan.

(Listen to Fowlkes’ poem, “The War” MP3 :40)

Today Sen. Jake Knotts hosted the annual Fallen Soldiers Ceremony and luncheon across from the Statehouse. The Senate will also pay tribute to the families of soldiers who have died in military service in the past year.

Events like this do make a difference, says Chris Fowlkes father, Steve: “For me, personally, talking to other people helps me with, well, getting back to where I should be…but I’m still proud.”

Steve and Donna Fowlkes were with their son in the hospital in Germany when he passed away. Donna Fowlkes offers to other military parents, ” Just be proud of him. that’s all you can do is rest on the pride that you have for your children when they do that.”

Senator Knotts says even though he hosts this event every year, he’d love to never have to again: “That would be a great day for South Carolina if we didn’t lose someone.”

Honored today were: Specialist Larry Curtis Applegate, Private First Class Jason R. Watson, Specialist Justin Antisdel, Staff Sergeant Raphael A. Futrell, Captain Mark McDowell, Specialist Abraham S. Wheeler III, Lance Corporal Christopher Fowlkes, Sergeant Demetrius Void, Lance Corporal Mills Palmer Bigham, and Private First Class Robert E. Foster.

South Carolina Radio Network

South Carolina lawmakers remembered the members of the armed forces from South Carolina who died in the last year while serving their country.

This year’s Fallen Soldiers ceremony and luncheon honored ten young men and their families.

Each family was presented with a concurrent resolution from the state House and Senate honoring the fallen soldier, along with The Order of the Palmetto Patriot and a state flag that was flown in their honor over the Statehouse.

WSPA

Angela Lattimore racks up more than $1,900 in medical bills every month.

But with income of just $1,500, she can only afford to pay around $300 and still provide a home for herself and her 10-year-old son.

She and other kidney dialysis patients say Medigap insurance would help. And next Wednesday they plan to ask the state Senate Banking and Insurance Subcommittee to release a bill that would enable them, and thousands of other disabled residents, to get it.

Lattimore, 36, has suffered from end-stage renal disease since her pregnancy, requiring her to undergo dialysis, a treatment that cleanses the blood in place of the kidneys.

Medicare pays for 80 percent of the procedure, medication and doctor visits. But that leaves patients to pick up the other 20 percent.

Lattimore, of Seneca, says her share is $1,200 for dialysis, $120 in drugs, and $600 for doctors.

While people 65 and older can buy private Medigap insurance to pick up much of the extra costs, younger Medicare beneficiaries by law cannot. Their only other option is the state’s high risk insurance pool, whose premiums are too costly for many people.

For those who are eligible, Medicaid picks up the additional costs. But Lattimore, who worked as an executive assistant at a marketing firm before she got sick, says she gets $150 too much in Social Security Disability to qualify.

About 500 of the 7,500 South Carolinians undergoing dialysis, and another 130,000 disabled people, have no secondary insurance, said Mary Higginbotham, manager of legislative affairs for the National Kidney Foundation of South Carolina.

“A lot of these patients are stuck in the middle, forced to spend down their assets so they qualify for Medicaid,” she said.

But many would rather get supplemental insurance, whose premiums run about $200-$250 a month, she said.

Legislation sponsored by Sen. Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, would allow them to do that, saving the state about $1 million a year in Medicaid costs, she said.

State Sen. Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee, said the measure is “good policy” for affected residents because it eases their financial hardship and saves taxpayers’ money.

“And in these budget times, every dollar makes a difference,” he said, noting 29 other states have adopted similar measures.

Lattimore, who gets dialysis four hours every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, hopes South Carolina will become number 30.

“Paying a premium would be so much more affordable than the balances I’m trying to pay now,” she said. “There is no way I can pay these bills.”

Greenville Online.Com

Boeing chief’s words show the importance of state’s right-to-work laws

Boeing Commercial Airlines chief executive Jim Albaugh said in an interview last week that he didn’t want to build his company’s new Dreamliner assembly line in South Carolina. He said the move is expensive and risky, and he would have preferred to create the additional capacity near Boeing’s Everett, Wash., operation.

But Albaugh is braving the risk and bringing a $750 million investment and an estimated 3,800 jobs to the Charleston area.

In the Seattle Times, Albaugh said, “The overriding factor was not the business climate. And it was not the wages we are paying today. It was that we can’t afford to have a work stoppage every three years. And we can’t afford to continue the rate of escalation of wages.”
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WSPA.com

Jobless benefits agency would be led by director named by governor

The Senate approved its version of reform for the troubled state Employment Security Commission on Wednesday, agreeing to move the agency to a Cabinet-style form of government led by a governor-appointed director.

Along with House-passed legislation approved last week, the Senate’s move means significant changes for the agency that manages South Carolina’s jobless benefits. [...]

The S.C. Senate passed its own plan to reform the state’s troubled Employment Security Commission, after hammering out a compromise over the governor’s control of the new agency.

The Senate had struggled to reconcile differing views on whether the new Department of Workforce would be part of the governor’s Cabinet, with some leery of adding to the authority of the executive branch.

The Legislature, according to Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia, needs to keep some oversight of the new agency, which will combine ESC functions with some now housed in the Commerce Department.
[...]

State Senate panel takes a big step toward making EMS records open to public.

Records of how emergency medical services respond to calls should be part of the public record. Thanks to a vote Thursday by the state Senate Medical Affairs Committee, South Carolina is one step closer to making those records accessible to the public.

The South Carolina Press Association had lobbied to make records of emergency calls — including response times and the names of emergency medical workers — open to the public. Those records now are kept private because of an obscure provision in a state law passed several years ago at the request of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. [...]

The public should be able to learn about the performance of rescue teams that respond to sick or injured people, a legislative panel agreed Thursday.

After weeks of discussion, the Senate Medical Affairs Committee voted for a plan to open most emergency medical service records that were sealed last year following a state attorney general’s opinion.

The unanimous vote sends the bill to the full Senate. A similar House bill is still in a committee. [...]

Supporters say plan would spur sales of 2nd homes, commercial property

The Senate gave key approval Tuesday to some real estate buyers and investors in hopes of giving a boost to property sales.

The Senate, after tense negotiations for the first month of the legislative session, approved legislation that would eliminate additional taxes at the point of sale on second homes, businesses and commercial real estate in South Carolina for sales that occur this year. Additionally, those properties would get a 20 percent tax exemption for such sales in the years after. [...]