Airport issues

• I just listened to the council meeting recording from June 3 that has been mentioned here about the airport budget. Besides the fact that the airport operates in the red and somehow still manages to get grant money, I learned that there’s only one person on staff at the airport. One. Kit Carson, for example, is an airport of only 8,000 operations, and they have two people on staff. How can our airport with over 125,000 operations only have one person? What happens if our airport manager is out or off premises? This seems like a safety issue for pilots and Longmonters.

• I would like to see VNAP data and more transparency re: fiscal operations at our airport. Why cant we be on a path to self-sufficiency? Why are we using federal dollars if we don’t have to? I’d like to see this issue be big and vocal in upcoming local elections.

What streets are open?

Someone please tell me which useful streets in this town are open and available. I think Pace is, and Route 66, but other than that, you cant get anywhere.

Medicaid cuts

To the caller saying the only people being hurt by Medicaid and Medicare cuts are undocumented immigrants, please read more or listen to CSPAN. Everyone on Medicaid and their providers will be impacted. Hospitals, doctors and states, red and blue, are bracing for steep cuts in their ability to provide services to the elderly, underemployed, underinsured, families, children. Please, read more.

Immigrants and Medicaid

• For goodness sakes, if you’re going to make claims on the TC Line, please check them first. Undocumented immigrants do not have Medicare or Medicaid. Some states do allow it. Colorado does not, and some states allow it for children of immigrants and pregnant women. I believe Colorado does. It took me a minute and a half to find multiple sources with that information, and maybe the TC Line shouldn’t print things that aren’t accurate.

• Good grief. How many times does it have to be said illegal immigrants cannot receive Medicare or Medicaid? So they are not cheating the system because they are paying taxes if they’re employed but they are ineligible to receive any benefits. And this has been said over and over again in print in various ways. Wake up.

• In this morning’s paper, more immigration misinformation that is harmful. Immigrants contribute billions of dollars to Social Security and Medicare. The only way they’ll ever get Social Security is to become a U.S. citizen. And on Medicaid, it’s mostly children and older people that have worked for many years. It’s disturbing that so many calls are based on misinformation, and I’m never quite sure when the editor decides to correct information and when he doesn’t.

Editor’s note: Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid, though some immigrants who are in the United States lawfully are.