WHERE REFORM STANDS
Majority hasn't moved on health care; why not?
Listening to President Obama's speech on health care Wednesday night, I heard a recurring theme: lack of support by the Republican minority for health care reform.
The Democrats have enough members to pass any bill they wish. Are Republicans staying away to allow the Democrats the glory of passing health care reform, or cannot the Democrats get their own members to support the current proposal?
If we have $300 billion in waste in the Medicare system, why haven't we corrected that problem already? The politicians should quit pandering to the health care lobby and the trial lawyers lobby and "organized" labor and take care of the taxpaying and working public.
DAVE HOLMGREN, ST. JAMES, MINN.
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The public option is already a compromise, since every other Western industrialized nation has some sort of universal, single-payer health care -- yet, this solution was banned from even debate in Congress.
Without the balance of a public option, it seems to me that the primary "reform" to health care is to give insurance companies tens of millions of new captive customers through individual mandates. Without a public option, what pressure is there to lower high premiums that average $800-plus a month for a family of four with a $5,000 deductible? What keeps insurance companies from dropping people when they get sick in states like Alabama where one insurance company insures 90 percent of the people?
After hundreds of billions for bank bailouts and military occupations without any mention of deficits, only ordinary Americans' needs warrant sudden concern about spending. No public option means we the people lose to corporations yet again.
LYDIA HOWELL, MINNEAPOLIS
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A Sept. 10 letter writer chastises Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck with "convincing" people of several issues having to do with the president's birthplace, the health care bill, and his speech to schoolchildren. The only thing that these guys have "convinced" me to do is to get involved and do research into everything Washington has its hands into. I have read the health care bill twice, and with that knowledge have decided it's a bad bill.
TORI EIDE, SAVAGE
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A friend of mine went to an emergency room the weekend before Labor Day at 7 p.m. Friday, had her blood pressure taken at 9 p.m., was seen at 4 a.m. Saturday and was admitted to the intensive care unit at 5 a.m. with a kidney infection. One time my aged mother was sent home incorrectly diagnosed after spending 10 hours waiting outside a different ER with a spinal fracture.
Would metro-area emergency rooms please cooperate to provide a website listing real-time waiting times for their respective ERs so that seniors with hairline fractures and people with kidney infections can choose an emergency room with a shorter waiting time? ERs must of course triage to put life-threatened patients ahead of others, but there's no reason to make sick people wait if there's a metro-area ER with a shorter wait time.
SUSAN FRENZEL, MINNEAPOLIS
Congressional outburst
Obama doesn't break his respectful stride
I have often thought that President Obama has overestimated the tolerance level and the intellectual level of many Americans. After the outburst by U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson during the president's address to the joint session Wednesday night, I know for certain that the president has overestimated the tolerance level and intellectual level of some elected members of Congress.
However, the president consistently rises above such childish behavior. He is a role model for rational, respectful behavior that many Americans, including certain members of Congress, should emulate.
CHERYL COULTER, BLOOMINGTON
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Yes, as has been reported exhaustively, the Republican congressman from South Carolina who shouted "You lie!" at President Obama during his health care speech Wednesday night was appallingly rude. His outburst was, obviously, an embarrassing breach of decorum.
But given all the space, ink, and airtime devoted to coverage of this infantile eruption, why is it so hard to find journalism addressing the substance of the heckler's claim -- that the president is deceiving us when he says his plan doesn't cover illegal immigrants? (The congressman was not only rude but mendacious, if anyone cares. The president is not lying; his bill prohibits any federal money to help illegal immigrants get health care coverage.)
If the media insist on constantly repeating the outburst, the fact that it's substantively bogus might be a relevant addition to the story.
SUSAN MAAS, MINNEAPOLIS
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It matters not that underfunded entitlement programs along with annual deficit spending now measure in the trillions of dollars, bankrupting our country. What does matter is that we continue the facade, the charade upon the public, and by all means, maintain polite decorum when the president addresses Congress.
One can only imagine if our Founding Fathers would have sat so quietly by, and watched their country sink further into the financial abyss. I think not.
TOM SCHWEBACH, EDEN PRAIRIE
