Health care a moral issue
How much is a life worth? Do we believe every life is equally precious? Who decides if our life or the life a loved one has value? These are deeply moral and spiritual questions, and they lie at the heart of the debate around access to health care.
Virtually all faith traditions teach that every life is sacred. Whether because we are created in God’s image, or a manifestation of the supreme being, or a single drop of the holy whole, the world’s religions insist that each of us have inherent worth. Our faith traditions agree that, as a society, we have a moral and ethical obligation to ensure every person has access to health care.
When people are forced to choose between necessary medications and heat or food, or to forgo critical treatments to avoid bankruptcy, we make health care, for all practical purposes, unavailable to some. To allow this unequal access to health care to persist is to declare that certain lives have more worth than others.
When our elected officials vote to dismantle programs like the Affordable Care Act, these decisions can be seen as a betrayal of public trust. Yet, Rep. Bruce Poliquin and Sen. Susan Collins have done just this.
If we believe that every human life has value, we must demand better — we must demand a health care system that puts human life over profits, and elected officials who will do the same.
Rev. Dr. Jodi Cohen Hayashida
First Universalist Church of Auburn
Auburn
No need for high-capacity magazines
With so much attention being focused on gun control, I can’t but question the need for high-capacity magazines for long guns. I am a Vietnam veteran having served three deployments there, and I am fully aware of the effectiveness and power of what is now being called an AR-15 assault rifle. We called them M-16s, but they are essentially the same thing. I do not believe that such a weapon should be available in a peaceful civilian setting. They should be used only by the military or law enforcement personnel.
I don’t believe that capacity is needed by hunters. When stalking big game or trophy animals, hunters have a culture of bragging about how good a shot they are and how it only took one or two shots to kill their animal. If they can’t hit their target with that, perhaps more time should be spent practicing at the rifle range.
Perhaps there should be shooting areas available for those who want more firepower. A supervised range could let civilians fire fully-automatic weapons in a safe environment. They could blast away to their heart’s content with an M-16 or perhaps even a belt-fed M-60. The only casualty would be to their wallets.
I know this doesn’t address the issue of mentally disturbed or abusive individuals, that is another topic, but reducing magazine size might make it a bit harder for anyone to have the ability to kill or injure large numbers of children or adults.
Al Larson
Orono
Abandon Wiscasset’s lawsuit
My wife and I fell in love with Wiscasset and the people who call it home enough to purchase a property on Main Street. Even though we live far away in the mountains of Colorado, we have become fervent supporters and promoters of the community and only want the best for the town into the future.
Wiscasset will see many benefits from the Maine Department of Transportation’s Route 1 project, including much-needed revitalization of the crumbling Main Street sidewalks, improved traffic flow and visual appeal of Main Street, and provide a basis for becoming more of a destination in the future and not a place that people simply pass through. I look forward to the day when I don’t have to circle the block several times, fighting traffic and hoping for a parking spot to open, and can stroll on the sidewalks.
Instead of funding a lawsuit against the state opposing the project, why not embrace the project (as the majority of Wiscasset residents did in the initial vote) and put the money and effort going into this lawsuit into restoring local buildings. We should all be working toward impactful improvements to this historic town, which we residents are all lucky enough to be the current stewards of.
We are directly invested in the future of Wiscasset and believe that a “no” vote to stop the wasteful lawsuit on April 17 is the best choice for ensuring that Wiscasset remains the “prettiest little village in Maine.”
Bradbury Ketelhut
Wiscasset
Stop Alzheimer’s disease
I just faced my 60th birthday in a way I never thought I would — widowed by younger onset Alzheimer’s. As one of the 69,000 Mainers who has provided care to someone living with Alzheimer’s, I understand the impact the disease has on families and our state. This year, Medicaid will spend $197 million to care for Mainers with Alzheimer’s, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
We may not have a cure — yet — but there are still things we can do. First, please join me in asking Reps. Chellie Pingree and Bruce Poliquin to fight for the millions of Americans affected by Alzheimer’s by passing the Building Our Largest Dementia (BOLD) Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act. Endorsed by the Alzheimer’s Association, the act would create an Alzheimer’s public health infrastructure across the country to implement effective interventions, including increasing early detection and diagnosis, reducing risk and preventing avoidable hospitalizations. This will help patients, families and the budget.
Second, leaders in Maine can help alleviate this burden by implementing and updating the State Plan for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias in Maine. Policymakers can also provide support to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to develop and implement efforts to educate the public about risk reduction.
If we are going to end Alzheimer’s disease, we must tackle it as the national health threat it is. I don’t want any other couple, any other spouse, or any other family to face what my husband and I faced.
Elisabeth Paine
Phippsburg