BANGI: Kejayaan skuad kebangsaan merangkul emas acara Regu dengan menewaskan tuan rumah Indonesia 18-21, 22-20 dan 21-11 di Sukan Asia Jakarta Palembang hari ini membuktikan Malaysia masih antara kuasa terkuat dalam sukan sepak takraw di rantau ini.
Naib Presiden Persatuan Sepaktakraw Malaysia (PSM) Datuk Mohd Somali Reduan, berkata kejayaan itu bertambah manis kerana ia menamatkan penantian 24 tahun Malaysia untuk meraih emas dalam sukan tradisi orang Melayu dengan kali terakhir berbuat demikian Sukan Asia 1994 Hiroshima, Jepun.
Somali berkata kejayaan itu adalah hasil kerja keras semua pihak terutama pemain yang bermain bermati-matian, selain usaha barisan jurulatih dan kepimpinan PSM.
"Berkat kesabaran dan kesungguhan pemain membuktikan takraw antara sukan berprestasi tinggi yang perlu diberikan perhatian.
"Apatah lagi kemenangan regu negara yang menewaskan tuan rumah, Indonesia, bukan suatu tugas mudah.
"Kita berdepan juga dengan ribuan penyokong tuan rumah, namun ketenangan dan semangat juang regu negara harus dipuji kerana melakukan sesuatu yang luar biasa," katanya dalam kenyataan di sini, hari ini.
Somali juga berharap kejayaan itu akan membuka mata banyak pihak supaya memasukkan semula acara tradisi itu sebagai sebahagian program sukan teras negara pada masa depan.
"Kejayaan skuad negara membuktikan bahawa Malaysia masih menjadi kuasa sukan tradisional ini.
"Jadi saya berani mengatakan sukan ini mempunyai ramai pelapis muda yang perlu digilap dari semasa ke semasa," katanya.
Paul
Melquist of St. Paul, Minn., has a message for the people who wrote the
Affordable Care Act: "Quit wrecking my health care."
Teri Goodrich of Raleigh, N.C., agrees. "We're getting slammed. We didn't budget for this," she says.
Millions
of people have gained health insurance because of the federal health
law. Millions more have seen their existing coverage improved.
But
one slice of the population, which includes Melquist and Goodrich, is
unquestionably worse off. They are healthy people who buy their own
coverage but earn too much to qualify for help paying their premiums.
And the premium hikes that are being announced as enrollment looms for
next year — in some states, increases topping 50 percent — will make
their situations more miserable.
Exactly
how big is this group? According to Mark Farrah Associates, a health
care analysis firm, as of 2017, there were 17.6 million people in the
individual market, 5.4 million of whom bought policies outside the
health exchanges, where premium help is not available. Combine that with
the percentage of people who bought insurance on the exchanges but
earned too much (more than four times the federal poverty level, or
about $48,000 for an individual) to get premium subsidies, and the
estimate is 7.5 million, or 43 percent of the total individual market
purchasers, according to insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski.
