Supports public option
We are now poised to achieve national health reform, but there is one big sticking point — the public option. The most apparent reason for opposition to the public option is that it refutes free market values.
A government-run health care system would supposedly create unfair advantage and weaken insurance companies’ chance to compete.
Here is the problem: While some aspects of our economy do run on “true” free market values, the vast majority of big businesses have completely corrupted the real market, so it now resembles nothing of the sort.
Health care companies have been running a rigged system for decades. We are tired of it and in 2008 voted for change. It is time to do right by the American people. Upholding free market values while allowing insurance and pharmaceutical companies to control costs and determine what is or is not a medical condition is a moral conflict of interest.
HMOs, insurance and pharmaceutical companies are not our friends. They are not doing what they do because they want to take care of us. They are in it for one thing — profit! And I don’t sleep well knowing that if I become ill the people deciding my fate are doing it based on my financial cost to them. It is not moral and it is not the cloth the founders of our nation wove. Let’s urge our senators to do the right thing and vote for health care reform that includes a public option.
Toby Stephenson
Ellsworth
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Time for a change
Every year it’s the same old thing — cut funding, cut education, lay off nonessential persons who might be the only people doing any work. All this to balance a budget that is full of gimmicks.
I am one of many who don’t like raising taxes, but face it, folks — if they were raised by a penny or two, would it be that bad? I recently traveled to the Midwest and down South and there is more than one state with a sales tax higher than ours.
Maybe it is time to redistrict our state and cut the House membership in half. Think of all the savings. We don’t need five times as many House members as senators. Let’s start cutting from the top instead of the bottom. Stop all these unnecessary studies and start doing what needs to be done. Quit talking out of both sides of your mouths and start giving straight answers for a change. Quit worrying about getting re-elected and start doing the job you were originally elected to do.
John Clark
Dedham
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Too many piles
It was Dec. 28, 42 degrees and a lovely day for a walk. As we did our laps on Sidney Boulevard and Wilbur Drive, we counted 22 piles of dog excrement.
Although this is better than last year (34 piles on one of our walks), it is still too many!
If you have a dog or walk dogs on our streets, please be considerate and pick up after them. What they leave behind is unpleasant and unhealthful.
Take pride in our development and our community. Make our area a pleasant place to walk.
Ernie and Pat Mayo
Hampden
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Search us all
The latest attempt to blow an airliner out of the sky reveals serious flaws in our transportation security process.
Efforts to improve it have been hampered by concerns about profiling and personal privacy. My own experiences have convinced me of the need to put these concerns aside and take a fresh look at security screening.
I am a 61-year-old white law-abiding citizen, a polio survivor, so I travel with crutches and wheelchair.
When I fly I go through the usual process, removing belt and shoes and sending all of my personal items, including crutches, through the scanner. Then I am hand-searched (patted down) and swabs are taken of my leg brace and wheelchair (to detect explosives).
This happens every time, no exceptions. If the latest bomber had been subjected to such a search I suspect that he would have been discovered before he boarded the plane. The system wastes time and resources thoroughly searching cripples and grandmothers, but this guy gets through?
Something is seriously wrong here. I propose that all passengers be searched in the same way that I am every time I fly. If the Transportation Security Administration is unable to protect us by selectively searching some passengers more thoroughly than others (profiling), then all should be searched as diligently as possible, personal privacy notwithstanding.
Perhaps we all must surrender a bit of personal privacy to ensure our collective safety. To date, only some of us have had to do so, and it is not simply unfair, it is not working.
Douglas M. Sewall
Orono
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Energy exaggeration
I admire Tom Walsh’s enthusiasm for his solar energy system (“A backyard power trip that saves us cash,” BDN, Dec. 26-27), but his math is a bit fuzzy.
He says he uses about 10 kilowatt-hours per day, which is approximately 3,650 kwh per year. His solar photovoltaic system generates about 2,000 kwh per year, so his net grid use is 1,650 kwh per year.
With his electric bill at about $35 per month, the cost per kwh is roughly 25 cents.
Therefore his savings from the solar unit are about $500 per year, or approximately $42 per month. He claims his electric bill went from $120 to $35, a saving of $85 per month.
Obviously he is exaggerating the benefit of his solar electric system.
Other conservation steps (as well as a propane hot water heater of unspecified monthly cost) are reducing his electric bill at least as much as his photovoltaic system.
His exaggeration is more egregious because the cost of the other conservation steps is apt to be relatively slight in comparison to the cost of his solar electric system.
Frank Pedersen
Brooklin