New PS&T pact appreciated
To the Editor:
I appreciate the new PS&T contract. Thank you, negotiators for PEF.
LARRY M. EVANS
Clyde
Kerry’s health plan better
To the Editor:
Recently, I was in Ohio to see a 54-year-old friend afflicted with a terminal illness. One of 44 million people without health insurance, he put off seeing a physician until pain forced him into a doctor’s office. By then, cancer had enveloped his system. Hospice has arranged for his pain-killing medications.
The afternoon I saw him, he told me the hardest part was “calling people to inform them I was going to die.”
I am not likely to forget that it was the lack of health coverage that kept him from seeking medical attention. I know that, whoever occupies the White House, America will still have holes in its health system.
That said, the health plan being advanced by John Kerry — to federalize coverage for patients once their expenses reach $50,000 — makes sense to me.
One of the reasons many people go without coverage, while those insured have to pay so much, is that it costs insurance companies to treat people who are ill, not ones who are healthy. Kerry’s plan will take the sickest people out of the risk pool once they reach the $50,000 threshold, and insurance rates will come down for everybody else.
Rolling back tax cuts for the upper 2 percent of income earners would pay for the cost of treating those without insurance and those with catastrophic needs.
With health costs having doubled during the Bush administration, state workers carrying family coverage know their annual premiums are close to $2,000.
People without workplace health insurance face costs of up to $5,000 a year for individual coverage and nearly $10,000 a year for family coverage.
The battle over the recently negotiated PEF agreement was largely a fight over who would bear the costs of health insurance increases. While the unions more than held their own, money that might have gone to raises went, instead, to pay insurance companies for surging health care costs. Hence, raises barely topped 2 percent a year, not even keeping up with an inflation rate that is being driven by higher health and energy costs.
TOM GRACE
Snyder
Member voting for Bush
To the Editor:
I want to discuss the reasons why I will vote for President George W, Bush this November:
1. He supports the amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. This amendment would limit judges and local officials from redefining marriage.
2. He opposes partial-birth abortion. I believe the baby feels the pain of having its brain removed by suction when it is born. I believe in a woman’s right, but I also believe in the baby’s rights.
3. The economy is expanding at a rate that we have not seen in recent years.
4. Presently, we have the right approach with the war on terrorism, which I believe we are winning. Vietnam is from the past. The past is the past. Today, there are people from various countries including some in the U.S. that want to destroy the U.S.’s way of life — freedom, a capitalist economy and a democratic society. To protect ourselves, we need an active approach.
Our Political Action Committee (PAC) money should be used to support members of the state Senate, Assembly and a governor who supports us. PEF PAC money should not be used to support presidential candidates and protests to the Republican Party National Convention.
RICK MANNS
Lockport
Editor’s note: PEF does not use any members’ dues or other PEF income to support political candidates in national elections. That is prohibited by federal law. PEF’s PAC funds are used only in state or regional elections.
The money used in national elections is from the PEF Committee for Political Education (COPE) and is voluntarily donated by some PEF members specifically for that purpose.
The Communicator
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The
Communicator October 2004
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