June 05, 2009 07:38 am Make health care single-payer system Are there those so out of touch that they don't realize that our country is in severe financial trouble? Given this situation, how can we ignore $400 billion of potential savings to be achieved in our health-care-financial system every year? That's right, $400 billion every year! This is the waste that is inherently built into the structure of our system of financing health care. There is only one way to convert this wasted $400 billion into productive use: single-payer national health insurance. Instead of using the $400 billion to subsidize waste, inefficiency, excessive bureaucracy, CEO bonuses, corporate profit, advertising and lobbying, this enormous amount of money could be used to provide every person in this country with improved and expanded Medicare. This would result in no longer having more than 18,000 people dying each year because of lack of access to health care. The half of personal bankruptcies that are the result of inability to pay for medical expenses would be gone. It would also substantially decrease the burden of health care costs of many corporations such as General Motors, thereby making them more competitive with international competitors. Recent Senate Finance Committee hearings invited many of the for-profit players to testify about health care financing. Doctors' and nurses' organizations in favor of single-payer national health insurance were not allowed to testify, and when they publicly protested this gross distortion of the public debate, they were arrested and treated like criminals. The chairman of this committee, Max Baucus, took more than $1.8 million from the for-profit health care industry in 2008. It is safe to assume he is not unbiased. Go to pnhp.org for more information. Richard Weeks Cooperstown Time for all of us to become `Americans' In the period of 1861-1865 there was in the United States a terrible civil war, which destroyed 2 percent of the population of this great country. At the end of this terrible period, the citizens of the United States became Americans, not New Yorkers, Floridians, etc. They did not become Afro-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, etc. They were glad to become "Americans." This also was the case of people coming to this country. As a white, Anglo-Saxon American of European descent, I believe it is time for the American people to go back to the idea of being Americans. During the Civil War there were whites, blacks, Europeans, Hispanics and, believe it or not, even females serving on both sides. It appears to me it is time for all citizens to be allowed to advance as far as they are capable on their own merits, not by the color of their skin or their ancestors' history. Jim Hitchcock Stamford Memorial meant for those in WWII On Memorial Days, I remember Memorial Day 1944, when we dedicated our tribute to Stamford friends away at war, on the little building now in Veterans Park. I was proud that my brother, Roger Willis, was on the tribute. Recently, Roger's widow came wanting to see his name. Imagine our hurt and shock to be told the VFW had thrown out the names at the end of the alphabet to make room for newcomers to Stamford! The memorial does not belong to the VFW, which did not even exist in Stamford when we dedicated it. Stamford Central School organized it, and as a student, I helped with the original design. It represents a very dramatic time Stamford people suffered through together. No Stamford graduate gave more of his life to the security of our country than Roger, yet he, the Wright brothers, Conrad Wirtz and Peg Yanson, our first WAC, were discarded like old shoes from the memorial we designed for them! Others have told me how hurt they too were by family members thrown out. I should have protested before this, but not expecting anyone would so disrespect our memorial, I hadn't noticed. My good neighbor, Al Beisler, found Roger's name strip and squeezed it in somehow. Perhaps newcomer vets didn't realize we designed it for Stamford World War II people to have first place there. Surely there's room at the VFW building for a fine display, with portraits, of members from anywhere and anytime. Have other communities had problems with WWII memorials we set up so earnestly 70 years ago? Where are they now? Anne Willis Stamford
—
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.