Cruise ship trouble
Cruise ships docking at an elongated Bluenose pier in Bar Harbor would be 1,000 to 1,200 feet long and carry roughly 6,000 passengers and 2,000 crew members. Often, two such vessels would be moored. Several effects would occur in Bar Harbor.
An additional 6,000 to 12,000 people in town — constantly.
More diesel exhaust fumes, waste water. Ship engines are supposed to be turned off while moored, but will they be? On Mount Desert Island, an historically constant northeasterly wind will bring fumes ashore into town. Ships of the size above generate about 60,000 gallons of wastewater a day, which is supposed to be treated before being dumped at least 3 miles offshore. What about lobsters and filter feeders harvested out there? Even after detoxifying sewage, original contents of nitrogen and phosphorous still would be released, potentially causing algal blooms. Any sediment stirred up by the large propellers of the ships in Frenchman Bay will not improve the flavor of animals harvested from that relatively small body of water.
Tourists drive here to see the dark twilights, beautiful mountains and islands of Acadia National Park, not illuminated mega-cruise ships and mega-piers permanently blocking views of Bar Island and the Porcupines from Hulls Cove or The Bluffs along Route 3.
Most visitors to Acadia National Park come by car, purchase major meals and stay at hotels and bed and breakfasts. Cruise ship passengers do neither.
Gary W. Conrad
Bar Harbor
Health care bill inhumane
When it comes to pre-existing health conditions, we cannot afford to go back in time. Before the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, insurers could charge sick people impossibly high rates. If you had cancer, or diabetes, or even a Caesarean section, insurance companies labeled it a pre-existing condition and slapped you with an enormous insurance premium. Rates were so high many people I knew had to go without health insurance. They just couldn’t afford it.
Unfortunately, we are once again in this untenable situation. The American Health Care Act that the U.S. House of Representatives passed earlier this month gives the upper hand back to the insurance companies. This is especially punishing for people ages 50 to 64 who often have chronic conditions. I hope our senators recognize that in Maine there are 123,155 individuals between the ages of 50 and 64 who live with pre-existing conditions.
The Senate plans to work on this flawed bill in the coming weeks. I hope they agree that basing health insurance rates on an individual’s pre-existing condition is unacceptable. The American Health Care Act will make health care unaffordable and inaccessible for more than 100,000 Mainers for this reason alone. In addition, the bill will discriminate against older adults by allowing insurance companies to charge them five times more what others pay for the same coverage just because of their age.
We cannot let this health care legislation pass. Please contact Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and urge them to reject this inhumane bill.
Erica Magnus
Windham
BDN editorial bias
I am a native Mainer who has come home and retired here. The Bangor Daily News primarily serves the large 2nd Congressional District and has become our daily newspaper. I have been disappointed for a long time by the continuous berating of Gov. Paul LePage and, more recently, President Donald Trump. The BDN editorial writers have been unfair to both and clearly have a leftist bias, yet Trump won the presidency fair and square.
Trump won in the 2nd District and, as a result, received one of Maine’s four electoral votes — the only electoral vote he received in all of New England. Because of the BDN bias, I, and the majority of 2nd District voters, will likely buy fewer BDN papers and pay less and less attention to the continuous leftist editorial rhetoric all the while hoping the news reporting is not as biased.
Trump won in the BDN market area because he speaks the language of the majority of silent, mostly small city and rural, every-day working Mainers. The editorial writers were then, and likely still are, out of touch. Second District Mainers won’t change their support of Trump as a result of the BDN’s editorials; they will simply ignore the paper. Trump will be with us for four years, and likely eight.
Now is the time for the BDN to look at the future and rethink its continuous left-leaning editorials. Maine’s 2nd District voters deserve better.
Richard de Grasse
Islesboro
Health care is a right
Michael Cianchette’s May 20 BDN column argued that health care is a privilege rather than a right. As an example of a right, he chose “life” from the Declaration of Independence’s line, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” He then said that self-defense also was a right as it was a logical extension of one’s right to life.
Similarly, health care must also be a right as it is a logical extension of one’s right to life and also happiness. Not having access to health care could easily lead to a loss of life and happiness. Thus, everyone has a right to health care.
John Field
Orono
Universal health care for Maine
On May 4, the Legislature’s Insurance and Financial Services Committee, including Rep. Garrel Craig, R-Brewer, worked overtime, hearing testimony from scores of Maine people supporting comprehensive health care for all Mainers.
Craig listened as his constituents told about lives devastated because of lack of health care. He also listened to how Maine could provide health care for all. He heard how publicly financed and privately delivered care for everyone would cost less, save lives and let every Mainer focus on getting well instead of worrying about paying for care, like in Canada, France, New Zealand, and on and on. Then on May 9, his committee unanimously recommended a feasibility study for universal health care in Maine.
Maine AllCare and our coalition partners, the Southern Maine Workers’ Center and the Maine State Nurses Association, who all advocate for comprehensive, publicly supported and privately delivered health care, thank Craig for the thoughtful and responsible action he took on behalf of everyone in Maine.
Lynn Cheney
Blue Hill