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Opinion

While helpful, COLA hike isn’t enough

Editorials

Blair County retirees will join about 53 million other senior citizens across America in welcoming the announced 2.8% average increase in their Social Security benefits, effective in January. The word “average” is important in this editorial because individual increases could be above or below the Social Security Administration’s announcement that the average monthly check next year will be $2,064, up $56 from this year. However, buried or absent among some of the increase announcements has been the fact that the standard Medicare Part B premium will be increasing by $21.50 a ...

Is the political discord worth it in the end?

Letters to the Editor

In all of my 81 years, I have never seen this country so politically divided as it has become since Donald Trump took office. Couples who have been married 25 or 30 years find themselves in divorce court because they have opposing opinions about Trump. Siblings and other family members no longer talk to one another because of their opposing opinions on Trump. Lifelong friends no longer speak because of a difference of opinion regarding Donald Trump. If Donald Trump was a person of high moral character, with integrity beyond reproach, maybe I could understand this. But he is not. He ...

Altoona water use should be verified

Letters to the Editor

I am writing to express my concerns regarding the billing practices of the Altoona Water Authority, particularly the lack of a way for consumers to verify the accuracy of their charges. While our bills detail the number of gallons used, we have no accessible meter on our properties to confirm these readings. In contrast, both electric and gas utilities provide us with visible meters, allowing us to check the accuracy of what we are being charged. When purchasing gas, for instance, we can see the calibrated meters in action, ensuring transparency. However, with the water authority, we ...

Med usage troubling when misconstrued

Editorials

A front-page headline in the Oct. 20 edition of the Wall Street Journal — and the lengthy article that followed it — evoked the troubling question of whether many people in this country who don’t really need to be taking antidepressants are becoming hooked on them. For people of the Southern Alleghenies region — Blair, Cambria, Bedford, Somerset, Huntingdon and Fulton counties — the obvious question needs to be whether such a scenario might be playing out here. “Out-in-the-open” dialogue dealing with the issue should be welcomed here. It might open many people’s eyes to ...

State leaders must be fiscally responsible

Letters to the Editor

It’s time for Pennsylvania to get serious about fiscal responsibility. Every year, families, seniors, and small businesses across our Commonwealth are expected to live within our means and our government should do the same. A balanced budget isn’t just good accounting, it’s constitutionally mandated in our Commonwealth. Gov. Josh Shapiro seems to have forgotten this, since he’s consistently called for a budget that has billions more in spending compared to the revenue that Pennsylvania is actually bringing in. The burden ultimately falls on us, the taxpayers, to foot the ...

Medicaid vital to Pa. health care system

Letters to the Editor

As Pennsylvanians, we all share a stake in preserving access to health care across our Commonwealth. Deep cuts to Medicaid scheduled for 2026 and 2027 would imperil that access — especially for rural hospitals and vulnerable communities that already operate with razor-thin margins. Hospitals across Pennsylvania have been forced to reduce or eliminate maternity services in recent years. Four rural labor and delivery units have closed since 2020, and today only about 38% of rural hospitals retain obstetric services. The crisis of disappearing maternity care is not isolated — it’s ...