Letters to the Editor 8/19

Not satisfied with tele-town hall format

Dear Mr. Dean Heller,

I am writing this in response to the article in the Aug. 12 Nevada Appeal. The headline is "Town hall meetings replaced," with the article saying that you have talked with some 200,000 Nevadans during the sessions you have had this year.

If I have been counted among those then your figures are incorrect. I have gotten the phone call putting me in line to talk and have averaged over an hour waiting to say my piece.

At the end to the session, I have been told to send any comments and questions to you and I would get a response. The response that I have gotten back has never had anything to do with my question but the same topic you were talking about for the hour plus.

We are hearing on the news that the outraged people at town hall meetings are staged. How can we not believe that your phone sessions are not the same?

Is this how our elected officials are going to deal with freedom of speech?

Louis Gundell

Gardnerville

Universal health care systems not socialism

American health care systems must be very complex and very divided systems. In the government sector (federal, states and the local governments), the public employees have their own health care systems. In the private sector, every business has its own employees' health care system. And the retired senior citizens have Medicare and Medicaid health care systems.

The so-called health care reform intends to cover everybody - some target poor children, some target small-business employees, some uninsured individuals, etc.

These are the patch jobs that would not solve the problems, but will make the health care system more complex, more divided, more wasteful, and a failure, because it's difficult to find sufficient funds to support it.

The American health care system has so many problems that we cannot just do the patch jobs to fix it. My suggestion is the following:

• Divided we fail. Why not combine the very complex, divided, wasteful and costly health care systems together and create a simple universal health care system to cover all Americans.

• The universal health care system must be independent of insurance companies and become a nonprofit organization to avoid middle squeezers and keep the premiums reasonable so everyone can afford them.

• A universal health care task force should be created to study and to perfect the new system.

Universal health care is a kind of national welfare and the people's livelihood. It is not socialism. Like Canada, England, Germany, etc., they do have universal health care systems, but they aren't socialist.

BILL HUI

Carson City

Town hall decisions labeled cowardly acts

They are cowards!

All the senators and representatives in Nevada have chosen to drop town hall meetings for over-the-phone-call meetings. They are cowards, choosing to avoid the people who put them in office.

They refuse to see the disdain in our faces, but we have the final say so in our vote next election. Apparently those elected officials have forgotten that and who they work for.

Ronald Feldstein

Carson City

Looking for informed health reform input

I am confused and I am hoping that readers can help me out. I am a resident here from England and I cannot understand why some people appear to be demonstrating against health care reform.

Reform is badly needed out here. The costs of the current system, as I understand it, are far greater, and increasing, than the costs of any socialized system such as in Canada or England. More and more people cannot afford the premiums for health insurance, especially now with so many losing their jobs and therefore benefits, or cannot obtain it because of "pre-existing conditions." Seniors are finding that more and more of their cash is going to medical costs than ever before.

So, surely it makes sense to have a system that reins in the insurance companies to bring down costs and stop the pre-existing condition racket, and also to have another government or part-government funded option for those who lose benefits or cannot afford them.

This doesn't mean that if you are one of the privileged ones, you lose your current insurance. It means that there is a safety net for those who need it. That might even be you someday. And yes, taxes may have to go up to pay for it. Small price to pay to make sure our families, children and seniors have access to affordable health care.

So I don't understand why people are against reform and would like informed, reasonable comments and feedback.

Karen Lemos

Carson City