Unfettered Letters

Many uninsured could have coverage

Steve Luptak (6/24, Letters) and others who believe that President Obama’s proposed health-care plan “guarantees quality, affordable health care” are dreaming.

There are three main factors when it comes to health plans: 1. How comprehensive is the coverage? 2. How liberal is the underwriting (i.e. what health conditions will it accept)? and 3. What does it cost? One of those three has to give or the plan will fail. The only way President Obama can put a plan in place that is comprehensive, accepts everyone regardless of health history and is low cost is by hitting us with big tax increases to help fund it — period.

Recently the Congressional Budget Office stated that 30 percent of the uninsured in this country can get coverage but simply choose not to pay for it, and that 18 percent can qualify for Medicaid but haven’t done the paperwork. Before this administration blows out one-seventh of the nation’s economy, maybe they should take a deep breath and just address the problems — those who legitimately cannot afford coverage and those who legitimately cannot qualify for it because of health reasons.

But then I’ve only been in the insurance business for 22 years, so what do I know?

Barry Kaplan
Overland Park

Capitalism is subject to change

Jonah Goldberg (6/25, Opinion) portrays certain businesses during this economic crisis as betraying free market capitalism by accepting government assistance.

The free market he so fiercely believes in is largely based on competition. Competition is not an abstraction. It’s a behavior aimed at something: survival. In nature, species do what they must to survive. Unusual circumstances drive unusual behaviors. As climate change continues, we will see plant and animal species reacting to it in unusual and uncharacteristic ways in order to survive.

Goldberg assumes that the only “market” is an economic one. At least one other market is “the marketplace of ideas” in which free-market capitalism is competing with other ideologies. In current circumstances it may not be able to compete and survive.

Capitalism, like most everything, is a product of evolution. It did not always exist. It emerged when circumstances propitious to its birth and flourishing arose. Those same circumstances are changing, and capitalism may be forced to evolve into another form. That’s not betrayal; it’s adaptation for the purpose of survival.

Richard Sumpter
Lenexa

Other famous same-day deaths

The Star’s coverage of the Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett deaths had an interesting sidebar of other similar occurrences (6/27, National/Local). The film greats Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni dying on the same day seems particularly uncanny.
 
Another famous shared-death date is the Nov. 22, 1963, deaths of John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley.

Larry Heffel
Lenexa

Medicare ‘doughnut hole’

It is profoundly helpful that the Opinion section of The Star is covering the health-reform issue. The commentaries by Paul Krugman and David Brooks published on June 24 — and the myriad recent letters from citizens — will certainly help keep the issue in the forefront.

I would like to add my two cents to the health-reform debate and the Medicare “doughnut hole” predicament. I am familiar with several older adults who are enrolled in the Medicare Part D program and have very high prescription costs. Like many, they didn’t worry much until they hit the Part D ceiling. None were at all prepared to pay full cost for brand-name drugs; their pharmacists advised them to ask their doctors about changing to generic drugs.

Because they knew I was an AARP volunteer, they solicited my advice and I immediately pointed them to AARP’s “doughnut hole calculator” available online. This simple tool not only provides drug choices that could be cheaper than brand names, it also calculates how long it would take to reach the doughnut hole.

Use the AARP online tool www.aarp.org/doughnuthole Someone you know may be in prescription cost crisis.

Franklin C. Walker
Missouri Executive Council Member, AARP
Kansas City

As a Medicare prescription drug program participant, I am pleased that the pharmaceutical industry has agreed to spend $80 million over 10 years to improve benefits for seniors (6/21, National/Local).
 
Thank you to Sen. Max Baucus for negotiating affordable prices on prescription drugs not covered by Medicare. With this new plan, drug companies would defray costs of drugs for seniors caught in the so-called doughnut hole.
 
This agreement with the prescription drug companies marked progress in accomplishing comprehensive health-care reform this year.

Jane Toliver
Leawood

Religious intolerance

For the past eight years, and certainly in 2000 and 2004 elections, the Republican Party asserted its ownership of morality. And, with the endorsement of the religious right, they won two elections. As the American electorate slept through George W. Bush’s two terms, his administration bankrupted the country with an unnecessary war in Iraq, from which we are still trying to extricate ourselves.

Now we see the mirror image of our Religious Right reflected in the streets of Iran. The ayatollahs wield a power that their American counterparts can only dream of. The lesson we need to glean from this: Given power and or opportunity, religious intolerance kills. We can see proof of this in the killing of George Tiller and the tepid reaction of some in this country to that outrage.

The first premise of morality is freedom of choice. The ayatollahs in Iran and their equivalents in America need to learn that. Moral legislation is an oxymoron.
 
John Van Horn
 Kansas City

KC confusing for tourists

I recently spent three days of my vacation in Kansas City.

During that time I read that city leaders are considering deploying a trolley service that would connect various tourist-oriented destinations. I would like to suggest that such a service would be a valuable enhancement, especially in light of the fact that the current facilities for tourists in cars are deplorable.

Some examples of poor design in Kansas City’s wayfaring system:

missing street signs.

streets that are named one thing in one block and another thing in the next block.

a lack of signage indicating which garages are located in, and which are located outside the Power & Light District.

a lack of signage in the Crown Center district to direct tourists to the parking garages.

I came away with the impression that your city’s primary aim is to reduce sign clutter on streets rather than inform and protect the drivers using those streets.

Robert Reed
Springfield, Mo.

Ignition interlock law unfair

Mothers Against Drunk Driving is wrong to push for ignition interlocks for low-BAC (blood alcohol concentration), first-time offenders (6/25, National/Local, “Repeat drunk drivers, take note”).

People driving at one sip over the legal limit shouldn’t be punished with the same severity as the high-BAC, repeat offenders for whom interlocks have traditionally been reserved.

  While it takes as little as two glasses of wine for a 120-pound woman to reach the 0.08 limit, the average BAC of a drunken driver involved in a fatal crash is 0.18 percent — more than twice the legal limit. Laws mandating ignition interlocks for all offenders deny judges the ability to distinguish between a driver one sip over the limit and high-BAC, repeat offenders. 

That’s why 27 states have passed interlock mandates for high-BAC and repeat offenders, while just 11 target low-BAC, first-time offenders. If MADD’s effort succeeds, Missouri will join the minority of states that punish marginal, first-time offenders the same as hardcore drunk drivers.

Sarah Longwell
Managing director, American Beverage Institute
Washington

A fast read?

I would like to know if either the stimulus bill or the cap-and-trade bill provide for Evelyn Wood’s speed reading classes for all members of Congress.

Cathy C. Runyan-Svacina
Kansas City

Bicyclists save everyone money

Tom Hartung (6/26, Letters) argues that cyclists don’t belong on the road because they aren’t licensed, don’t pay any part of road costs and don’t have liability insurance. What he overlooks is that virtually all cyclists are also auto or truck owners. They have already paid those license fees and already have liability insurance on their vehicles.

More miles ridden by cyclists means fewer miles they are using their cars on the roads. That means that society gets the benefit of the fact that they are not using their cars to pollute or to wear out the roads as much as when they are driving. It means that cyclists subsidize the road system to the extent that their riding reduces the time they would otherwise be using their cars on the roads.

I usually commute by bicycle to work — about 1,100 miles a year. That’s 1,100 miles that I am not clogging up a full traffic lane, spewing auto emissions and helping to wear out the pavement. The city and state still got the full benefit of my auto license fees, even though I am using my car that much less.

Ken Cobb
Vice president, Johnson County Bicycle Club
Mission

I wonder if Tom Hartung wants to keep out-of-state drivers off his Kansas streets? After all, they pay no taxes to support his roads. They come in, mooch, and then leave, providing their support elsewhere. And those darn pedestrians. Walking on sidewalks, or sometimes even on the street, without a license or permit!

The fact is, until all roads are toll roads, and only those who pay the fee on the spot can get on, there is always going to be some give and take in this.

We have decided as a culture that roads improve everyone’s life. And we all pay for them to improve our lives. We do not pay based upon usage, so my car, which clogged the roads for fewer than 1,000 miles last year, still demanded property tax, license and insurance be paid. We all bear the cost so that the roads are available to everyone — including cyclists.

I’m shelling out plenty for my 36 inches of road, Mr. Hartung. Plenty.

James C. Clark
Overland Park

Tom Hartung states bicyclists should pay the same taxes as car, truck and motorcycle riders. Seems fair on the surface. Filter it down a little and you see that maybe bicyclists should be reimbursed for biking. Bicyclists do not put the wear and tear on a street that a semi-tractor, car or motorcycle does. They do not pollute the atmosphere, causing health-related costs to everyone. It’s greener for the planet in general.

By riding bicycles, people stay in better physical condition, lessening the drain on the health-care system.

I think bicyclists should pay less in taxes or get reimbursed for saving everyone some money.

Jim Bishop
Holt, Mo.

GOP must call out racist behavior

This letter is supporting Leonard Pitts’ column “It’s past time for Republicans to purge their party of bigotry” (6/23, Opinion). First of all, I know most Republicans are decent people who do not share these views. There is bigotry on both sides and in all parts of society.

But the recent incidents, which Mr. Pitts points out, need to be stopped and not tolerated: The aide to a Republican state senator from Tennessee who sent a racist cartoon, the song “Barack the Magic Negro,” a McCain campaign worker blaming a fictional black man for a fictional mugging, a party official referring to the executive mansion “The Black House,” and the Republican activist in South Carolina calling an escaped ape one of Michelle Obama’s relatives.

These are all an outrage! What is happening in this party that others in the party don’t speak out? Why haven’t people in the press made it more of an issue?

People on all sides need to condemn this kind of behavior. It cannot be tolerated. Do not remain silent.
 
Julie Ruskin
 Overland Park 