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Recently on cable news, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, stated that he was against a public health care option because, “119 million people would opt out of private health insurance and join it.”
Wait a minute – isn’t the main argument against affordable universal health care that it would limit choice? But Sen. Grassley is against the American public choosing a different option because it may hurt insurance companies? Really?
Our current system is broken, run by for-profit health insurance companies that have a duty to their stockholders to make a profit. They do that by charging exorbitant rates and sky-high deductibles and denying coverage to their paying customers by arbitrarily classifying necessary treatments as experimental.
Congress will soon start debating the direction of the health care system. This is a crucially important topic that deserves honest, fair, bipartisan debate, free of the nonsense that universal health care will make us a socialist nation.
It won’t do that. What it will do is make us a competitive country, leveling the playing field for small businesses and large corporations alike, so that we may compete with other capitalist nations that offer the universal health care advantage to their businesses.
I urge all readers, no matter their political leaning, to get informed on this issue and contact your lawmakers in support of universal health care.
CRAIG SMITH Fort Wayne
Socialized medicine, a.k.a. national health care, is back and being pushed with a vengeance. The White House is trying to woo the probably 90-some percent of Americans who have health insurance by telling them they can keep their insurance if they like it. I don’t believe it for a second! It may be that way at first, but you can bet the farm or anything else you hold dear that at some point everyone will be required to use the government plan or it will simply never work and last.
Knowing that, there is only one way to get me on board, and that is if the national health care plan also applies – mandatory, by law – to all members of Congress and their staffs as well as the White House staff – not necessarily the president, though that would be a good example for him to set, but everyone else.
If it’s good enough for the serfdom, then it should be good enough for the ruling elite. Then, and only then, might I be converted.
KEN SELKING Decatur
As a part-time social worker, part-time educator and full-time citizen who voted for President Obama, I am dismayed and disappointed in his approach to health care. I voted for Obama believing that he really was a progressive proponent of change. Now he seems to be listening to the lobbyists from the insurance industry, even going back on his statement made as senator from Illinois: “I am a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program.”
There is such a bill (H.R. 676) written by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers, sometimes known as the “Medicare for all” bill.
In these tough economic times, a single-payer system makes the most sense. People often stay in dead-end jobs for fear of losing health care benefits. If single-payer health care were available, it might spur entrepreneurs to take risks to start new companies knowing that their health care would not be in jeopardy.
Obama promised that all that was needed was for Democrats to take the presidency, the Senate and the House and universal health care could happen. This is the time for citizens to hold Obama to his words of six years ago when he was a promising senator from Illinois.
Voting on health care will occur soon. It is time for citizens to tell our elected officials to support single-payer health care for all.
KATHI WEISS Fort Wayne
I am not pro-casino, but if we are going to get a casino, let’s try to make it a win-win situation.
Locate the casino where the Harrison Square condos were supposed to go. Let the casino put in restaurants, but the restaurants must be family-friendly with entrances other than through the casino. Let them put up a hotel if they need to, but no theater or convention center; they can use the Embassy Theatre and the Grand Wayne Center, which are already right there.
That way, there would be less business damage to existing facilities; the restaurants will draw anyone in the Fort Wayne area, and the condo spot is filled.
This seems to be the most logical way to proceed with something I don’t think the majority of Fort Wayne citizens want.
VAUNETTA BARNHILL Fort Wayne
Regarding the story “Casinos bring more crime, Richards says; Henry mum” (June 12): Cheers to Karen Richards for writing a well-reasoned, detailed, concise, informative and comprehensive letter to Mayor Tom Henry concerning gambling, crime related to gambling and the possible effects on our community.
Jeers to Mayor Henry for allowing our city to continue to pay salaries totaling $6,000 a month for two lobbyists to push for a gambling referendum. Why are we throwing bad money after bad money? Why is the taxpayer not allowed to see the detailed invoices to know how much has been paid to date? If tax dollars are paying for these lobbyists, then detailed invoices should be published in the newspaper for review by taxpaying citizens. An excuse for not making the lobbyist costs public was attorney-client privilege – I don’t think so!
VICKY FOLTZ Fort Wayne
Early in my pastoral career, I discovered that the easiest place for the antichrist to operate is in Christian disguise. So it is with the zealots of the anti-abortion movement, most recently epitomized by Scott Roeder in the heinous murder of Dr. George Tiller.
While groups like Operation Rescue are trying to convince us that Roeder acted alone, there is ample evidence that he moved with the open encouragement of militant anti-abortion groups and incendiary voices like Bill O’Reilly, Alan Keyes, James Dobson, Randall Terry, Mark Crutcher, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
Most of the above have one thing in common: They employ Christian language to justify the holiness of their cause and the righteousness of their deeds. To hear them talk, they are driven by a godly desire to protect the unborn – even to the extent of sanctifying blatant acts of violence.
With zealots like Roeder and their vociferous cheerleaders, I suspect that “the sanctity of life” is mostly a smokescreen. It provides a convenient springboard for encouraging and committing hate-filled acts of oppression, not only toward abortion-rights advocates but also to all manner of convenient scapegoats (women, Jews, Muslims, intellectuals, homosexuals and so-called “illegals”).
Roeder and his compatriots have shamed our nation by compromising the very moral code they claim to uphold. Until ordinary citizens are willing to stand up to these terrorists, the antichrist will continue to enjoy a field day in America.
THOMAS E. SAGENDORF Hamilton
“God of Carnage,” a 2009 Tony-nominated Broadway play, shares much in common with Eugene O’Neill’s 1928 Pulitzer-prize-winning script, “Strange Interlude.” Both literary creations teach us something about ourselves and reflect this time in which we live. Their messages? Common decency and respect for others demand considerably more willpower than humanly possible. Cordiality is simply a shallow guise. Doubt and suspicion boil up and spew.
The recent production asks us to understand that responsible adults, when adequately frustrated, can revert to levels of immaturity less than that of children. O’Neill’s Depression-era experimental offering presented characters’ inner thoughts through uttered asides following superficial lines of dialogue that smacked of civility.
Harmony’s elusiveness pulsates beneath the surface these days. Free-floating, tormenting resentments may grow as uncertainty – regarding job security, health crises, insurance availability, decaying infrastructures and our collective future – generates mounting anxiety. Benjamin Franklin warned, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” How, though, do we survive without candor? The answer, “blowing in the wind,” probably lies in compassion.
SUSIE DUNCAN SEXTON Columbia City
Regarding the op-ed column by Tracy Warner, “Expect more political theater about budget” (June 9): Warner included an item about SignBig that was based on assumptions about the goals and direction of SignBig and clearly lacked pertinent facts.
While it was disappointing to see that the column wasn’t balanced by both facts and food for thought, it was even more unsettling that Warner seems to have bought into the idea that it is up to taxpayers (you know, the ones footing the bill for government) to prove that government is spending money frivolously. All one has to do is look at the level of corporate welfare and bloated, local government and it’s apparent there are still cuts that can be made. Indiana has more elected officials than the state of California. Is that really necessary?
Surely, Abraham Lincoln’s words that government is of the people, by the people, and for the people haven’t fallen on deaf ears, have they? Many Hoosiers have lost their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet. If ever there was a time to ask more of our elected officials, it is now. If ever there was a time for our elected officials to take notice of the thousands of people showing up at tea parties around the state, it is now. If ever there was a time to bring forth solid tax reform, it is now.
Let’s not get stuck on what has been done. Rather, let’s look at what more can be achieved. If you’re interested in lower taxes and smaller government, visit www.SignBig.com.
MARISSA LYNCH Chairwoman SignBig Indianapolis
