COMMUNITY FORUM - Letters

Plan will harm seniors

Something very sinister seems to be evolving with the new healthcare plan. I was outraged to read about the possible cuts to Medicare that may force hospitals, doctors and nursing homes to refuse care to seniors.

On the heels of that piece of news came the statement that women, aged 40, did not need mammograms and senior women needed them only every other year. The ‘Task Force’ (whatever that is) states that it does not see the need for self breast exams even though statistics clearly show the increase in breast cancer. Has our government gone completely mad? Preventative medicine saves lives, with early detection, and it is cost effective. I’m surprised the government didn’t pass a law to make euthanasia legal. I figure that would be next because the truth of it is the government can’t afford to have so many seniors living in the United States.

Medicare and social security are not, as people are made to feel, charity. These are accounts that working people have paid into for most of their lives. They trusted our government with their futures and they were robbed. No one has been held accountable. Seniors and women should not be sacrificed for the mismanagement and fraud of Medicare.

A.E. Connors, Monument

What is City Council doing?

What is City Council thinking or who are they working for? The citizens of Colorado Springs want to double our police and firefighter force and give them pay increases. Let them enforce city laws with strict fines imposed for running red lights, speeding, driving without a license, shooting fireworks within the city limits. If laws were enforced our crime rate would drop and the city would be the wealthiest city in the nation. Instead, we have next to no law enforcement, the crime rate keeps escalating and the city is broke. Why can’t City Council put two and two together? How do we take back our city from City Council?

Deborah Lane, Colorado Springs

Healthcare bill: DNR

Unlike mandatory car insurance, health insurance costs hundreds of dollars every month for a family. Normally, companies pick up much of the cost. But what happens when someone is laid off? Not only does that person’s income plummet into the abyss, with mandatory coverage, his expenses will skyrocket (since his employer no longer pays a majority of the premium). Any available assistance will have huge bureaucratic hurdles, meaning few will qualify, and even fewer will get it. This isn’t more of the same. Instead of just a spiraling national debt, the federal government seems hell-bent on rocketing the debt of the unemployed into the stratosphere. If you like foreclosures, this should be music to your ears.

If people are forced to get health insurance, foreclosures will skyrocket, sinking the economy into the abyss at warp nine. Do not engage the auto-destruct of working class families. This health “care” legislation needs a DNR (do not resuscitate) order placed on it before it places this country in a coma.

Chuck Erwin, Colorado Springs

How insurance works

Ignorance! Ignorance! Ignorance. Those Congressmen who favor the healthcare plan proposed by Senator Reid have no idea what they are doing. Individuals purchase insurance to cover adverse medical conditions that may or may not arise in the future. It’s a gamble. If problems arise, the medical expenses are covered and the patient wins; if problems do not arise, the insurance companies win! The insurance companies determine the odds and base their premiums on those odds.

The government’s plan to require insurance companies to accept individuals with pre-existing conditions will destroy the whole concept of health insurance. This will drive insurance companies out of business thereby opening the doors for complete government control over health care. How can normal citizens understand this concept, yet those supposedly intelligent members elected to Congress remain so ignorant?

Linder Winter, Woodland Park

Discouraged by Obama

After watching the memorial service for 15 soldiers killed from Fort Carson, I am discouraged by our current president. As a military wife, my family has personally sacrificed for the freedoms our President enjoys, his children enjoy, and which gave him the right to be elected. Why is it then that he hasn’t made Afghanistan a priority on his to-do list? While more men and women are losing their lives, he is pushing healthcare reform.

I realize there are those who think Obama can do no wrong. But when are the American people going to stand up for our servicemen and women? When are we going to say enough is enough and send them some relief! I wish our President would show a little more respect and a little less self-rightousness.

Joanna Lemmon, Colorado Springs

The worst health bill ever

The current bill on the floor of the Senate being considered for cloture is as flawed a bill as one could ever imagine being placed on the American people.

The bill calls for billions in cuts to Medicare; it collects taxes for a program that won’t start until four years later; it doesn’t address the need for more doctors to be able to take on the influx of 31 million additional customers that will be added to the medical system; it allows for public (i.e. – taxpayer) funding (hence public option) of abortions... forcing the majority of Americans (48 percent say they want funding prohibited from covering abortions, while just 13 percent want the funding required (Rasmussen Reports) who don’t agree with abortions to fund it for those who use abortion (only 4 percent of abortions are due to rape, incest, threatening life of mother).

At this time, the majority of Americans are losing faith in this Democratic Party-run Congress and Presidency as they push their liberal value system of big government and big taxes on all of us. Wherever you stand on the issue of this healthcare bill going through the Senate, it’s clear that this is nothing more than a Harry Reid/Nancy Pelosi boondoogle of the people’s money.

I don’t want to see either of our Senators vote for cloture, even if the Senate Majority Leader pulls them behind closed doors to make a deal …

I want them to actually represent Colorado and vote the best way for the people of our state and our country. This bill is nothing more than an accounting gimmick… a gimmick that will not be paid by our Senators or Congressmen, but by the working stiffs of Colorado’s middle class. Cut us a break Harry Reid, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet.

Oppose this bill for something that fiscally makes sense!

Stephen Collier, Colorado Springs