Letters to the Editor: January 2010

Critical health care

I read with great anticipation “7 Critical Maneuvers” [December] regarding the health care debate. It seems to me nobody understands the real need here. We don’t need health insurance, we need health care.

I am five years away from being eligible for Medicare; I have started my search and I am still looking for a doctor who will accept new Medicare patients.

What will be the use of having insurance if you can’t find doctors? - Ilona Anderson, Edmonds, Wash.

“7 Critical Maneuvers” was very good and informative, but in my opinion should have added an eighth item—legal tort reform. If spiraling health care costs are to be reduced, we must rein in attorneys and outrageous lawsuit awards.

I am not suggesting that people should not be protected from malpractice, but punitive damages have become unreasonable and have forced malpractice insurance premiums sky-high.

Getting a handle on lawsuit awards is paramount in reducing health care costs. - Bob McGregor, Salinas, Calif.

While I heartily agree with the point made in “Democracy’s New Challenge” [Editor’s Letter]—that discussions about health care reform should be rational and civil—I found the analogy ill-chosen and potentially harmful.

The implication that President Obama’s fight for health care reform is analogous to Sylvester Graham’s attempts to reform people’s habits leaves a seriously mistaken impression.

Graham had highly idiosyncratic, peculiar, even revolutionary ideas and promoted drastic lifestyle changes with little scientific basis. In contrast, President Obama’s policies are the result of careful, systematic examination by many experts, and his health care proposals are sensible approaches to a pressing national problem. - Angelika Pohl, Decatur, Ga.

I am shocked and outraged by the slanted sentiments expressed in “Democracy’s New Challenge.” Your history lesson was tolerable until you started likening the protesting bakers and butchers of Boston in 1837 (who—can’t you figure this out?—were trying to protect their livelihood) to those of us who protest the current health reform bill, calling some of our behavior “vulgar, abusive and racist.”

Pardon me, but it is not health reform itself to which we object but an omnibus bill that is laden with all kinds of pork we do not want and will ultimately adversely affect the benefits that we are promised. It is the subterfuge that we are trying to stop. - Patricia Messier Adams, Orlando, Fla.

I strongly support AARP’s clear thinking and unselfish attitude toward health insurance reform legislation.

As a patriot and a Christian, it breaks my heart for my country to have the most expensive, least accessible health care system in the developed world, while producing such poor public health outcomes. - Steve Waller, M.D., Washington, D.C.

Forgotten soldiers?

The article on the National World War II Museum in New Orleans [“Big Easy WWII Museum Expands,” In the News] reported that “… the museum tells the story of the more than 1 million Americans who participated in World War II.” Approximately 16 million men and women served in the U.S. military during the war. And that’s not counting the many millions who participated on the home front. - Burton N. Boyd, Kingsport, Tenn. 

We appreciate hearing from you. Write to: Bulletin Editor, Dept. RF, 601 E St. N.W., Washington, DC 20049; or e-mail to: Bulletin@aarp.org. Please include your address and phone number.