Aug. 22 Letters to the Editor

Numbers don’t justify reform

After nationalizing large parts of the auto, banking and insurance industries, and establishing a huge political slush fund masquerading as a stimulus package, Democrats have pushed the national debt to unprecedented levels. With interest costs consuming more than 20 percent of national income, the government is engaged in additional deficit spending every day.

Now, disregarding our worsening financial condition in his hunger for power and control over the lives of Americans, President Obama wants to take over our health-care system at a cost somewhere over $1 trillion.

Obama justifies this by claiming that 47 million Americans don’t have health insurance. However, the Census Bureau reports that his number includes 11 million people living here illegally, 8.7 million who earn over $75,000 per year and 8.3 million earning between $50,000 and $75,000 who choose not to purchase insurance. This leaves only some 7 percent of Americans who truly can’t obtain insurance.

Socializing our entire system to care for those 7 percent is ridiculous and would result in higher cost (government), less effective (government) health care complete with (government) rationing.

Larry Young

Silver Lake

Give all access to care

In his informative commentary, Richard Nau described some of the many problems with the health-care system.

He also mentioned that he and most others have health insurance and are happy with it and, therefore, questions why commentators and politicians think insurance is the main problem with health care. That’s like saying, “The beach I go to has very good lifeguards, so there’s little chance of me drowning, and I’m happy,” while closing your eyes to that fact that many beaches don’t have lifeguards and other people actually are drowning.

Presumably, Nau simply didn’t give enough consideration to the impact of his words, but it suggests the “I’ve got mine, who cares about you?” mentality.

Has such thinking become part a component of being a good American? If so, why do we impose it on ourselves while abandoning it when others are concerned?

With little objection from her citizenry, the U.S.A. consistently sends billions of tax dollars in aid to Columbia, Egypt, Israel, Ukraine and many other countries each year. The U.S.A. proudly does this and much more for others, yet the idea of making it possible for all Americans to have some form of health insurance is met with massive resistance and hailed as being an unAmerican concept that will dismantle the underpinnings of our country. Go figure.

Doug Dwyer

Longview

Stepp for school board

Pat Stepp is our recommendation for the Woodland School Board Position 5 in this November’s election.

Throughout our 40-plus years of friendship, we have been in awe of Pat’s vital interest and concern about public and private citizen issues.

Unlike the majority of us, Pat has dedicated herself to being part of the solutions, involving herself in a never-ending list of educational, political and volunteer situations in order to help better our society.

Helping to qualify Pat for the school board position have been five years on Yale School staff, secretary for the Woodland Community Schools Advisory Board’s first year, Brownie and Campfire Girls’ leader and four years as a Washington state House of Representatives’ tour guide (which included teaching school groups Capitol history and about how bills become law, and also helping conduct mock trials with students), as well as being a mom of three Woodland High School graduates, all of whom are college graduates.

Because of her deep empathy and concern for the disadvantaged, Pat has represented the State Aging Council by serving on the Home Care Quality Board, and currently is serving on the Cowlitz County Developmentally Disabled Advisory Council (which mainly facilitates the entrance of challenged high school graduates into paying positions in society).

Vote for Pat in November.

Jim and Mary Jo Kellar

Woodland