HEALTH CARE
As a conservative, I know I will get panned for this letter, but sometimes even your always fully informed liberal base needs a bit better understanding. Part of the problem with this nation is that people form opinions based on opinions or desires rather than facts. The liberal side knows this and markets it well and very successfully (with a compliant media). The Republicans could not market their way out of a wet paper bag, as their disastrous approach to the recent continuing resolution and debt limit demonstrated.
In a recent letter (October 17th issue) bashing Republicans, the writer opines about how stupid poor Republican voters are and makes this statement: “Canadians, like most civilized people, have free health care.” And therein lies the problem and the frustration for many of us conservatives.
Health care is not free — not in Canada, not in the U.K., and not here, Affordable Care Act or not. Someone always has to pay for it. Certainly for some in our nation, it will be free, but others will be paying for it. Which is why most of us with health insurance will continue to see the cost of our coverage increase significantly through higher premiums and much higher deductibles. Even your president acknowledges this fact.
My understanding is that Canada has the liberal utopia of a single-payer system. But I can assure you, even in Canada, it is not free. It is paid for through higher taxes. For politicians to communicate that it is free is irresponsible and misleading. But that is the mentality espoused by liberal politicians and their base: the idea that everything is free and that we have a blank check for any and every entitlement program, every spending desire.
That is the frustration conservatives have with how Obama and the liberals run the financial side of the house — completely irresponsibly (not that Republicans are much better). Spending like we do is not sustainable, yet liberals govern like it is. At some point, if unchecked, we will become the next Greece. What will liberals do when they have run out of other people’s money to spend?
Scott Brumbelow
Memphis
Republicans would have us believe their propaganda: The reason for the mandate that everyone without health-care insurance must buy some is very simple: Health-care costs have been rising by double-digit percentage points for years, costing everyone more and forcing companies to reduce or cancel their company health-care plans, or increase the cost to their employees, year after year.
The best way to keep health-care costs down is to include everyone in the insurance mix. It’s just math. The more Americans who are insured, the lower the costs for everyone. This is how insurance works. And this is why costs are lower when you are part of a group policy, instead of paying for health care as an individual.
Tea Party Republicans know this but refuse to admit it. They would rather omit the facts or just lie about them.
Jack Bishop
Memphis
SPAY YOUR PETS!
In Macon, Georgia, recently, the city council approved a mandatory spay/neuter ordinance. The approved version of the law sets a deadline of July 1, 2014, for all dogs and cats over the age of 6 months within city limits to be spayed or neutered, with very few exceptions.
We need this law to be made state-wide in Tennessee.
Trecia Watson
Memphis
Don Henley
DON HENLEY DISSED US
I don’t know how to blog or tweet and such, so maybe this news is out there and I didn’t see it, but I can’t find any mention of Don Henley’s little rant at the Eagles concert last week.
He said something to the effect of “It’s good to be back in Mississippi.” When the audience called out to correct him and remind him he was in Memphis, he said, “Okay, this is not an interactive concert here. I’m talking.” He was not smiling and was pretty pissy. As a lifelong fan of the Eagles and Don Henley, I was really upset by the “Mississippi” slipup and his snippiness toward the fans.
Dena Williams
Memphis