Letters to the Editor
The 2008 report on pages 5 and 7-11 indicates that the Medicare denial rate of 6.85 percent is more than twice the average denial rate of private insurers.
We should receive this kind of information to decide what is best. The rush to pass legislation must include an evaluation of the current government systems.
Bill Small
Montgomery
Natural gas, petroleum, coal ("clean coal" is an oxymoron similar to "military intelligence") have all had their day in the sun -- and now their emissions have the ability to end our civilization. We have mercury in every single fish tested in Illinois thanks to burning coal.
We have wars for oil, faucets that ignite spontaneously in homes built near natural gas lines.
How dumb are we? Do we deserve extinction? Would the planet be a better place?
I try not to think out what that says about us. Do the corporations that are making billions selling and processing hydrocarbons think coffins have pockets?
Anita Mitchell
Sugar Grove
They went with a government agent and discovered that in Miami the rip-off of Medicare is bigger than the illegal drug business with very little chance of being caught and smaller penalties if you are.
The Medicare program is going broke and the fraud is probably hundreds of billions of dollars per year. No one really knows, of course, but watching that program makes you realize once again that government is not good at much.
There are only a few investigators to oversee the whole thing. It is just unbelievable. The same Congress which passed Medicare Part "D" will be creating this whole new program.
How can they fund it out of savings in the Medicare program when they don't provide enough people to properly oversee Medicare?
Much criticism has been directed at the insurance industry as if most of the premiums are profit. But it is a free enterprise system with a lot of competition.
Their profit margin is not high compared to other industries. When you go to a single payer system you eliminate competition and create all kinds of opportunities for corruption.
The government's proper role ought to be to enact legislation to allow everyone to be able to get insurance at the same price regardless of medical history and without discrimination.
For the very poor it would probably be necessary to pay all or part of the premium. We are already paying the medical costs for them now. It is not necessary to take over an entire industry to accomplish that.
Robert Higgins
Oswego Township
Teachers have a lot to do with a class of 25-30 students just teaching, let alone helping individual students having problems.
It seems that a targeted student approach would work better, direct effort where needed, and could be done by adding study skills teachers (SKTs) to work in some classrooms. That is, targeted students would be those few getting F's or D's. or not doing homework.
SKTs would work to motivate and to find what will get them excited about learning so as to raise their grades.
Rather than paying the teachers more, I would suggest a motivational reward for all: Students, their parents, and SKTs. Motivations would vary and include all going to a baseball game, laser tag, a pizza night out.
All should get rewarded as all must work together. Schools and teachers must experiment to see what works. Schools are moving toward individual education and this would be another tool teachers have to create successful students.
Schools should also realize that not all students want or care about AP classes and college and the school and parents should understand that it's OK to have a dual path for those non-college-bound students, where a working skill is acquired, and a community college may be a better choice for some children.
Paul Betten
Naperville
Apple Computers' most recent annual revenue was $24 billion. At its peak, Pablo Escobar's cocaine cartel had an annual revenue of $30 billion. Microsoft's most recent annual revenue was $60 billion. The estimated amount of Bernie Madoff's fraud is $65 billion. While they may have similar revenue amounts, no one would consider Apple to be on par with the Escobar cartel or Microsoft as the equivalent of the Madoff scheme.
The genius and hard work of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates gave us the tech boom, which yielded a decade of economic growth and which continues to improve our quality of life. Pablo Escobar gave us the cocaine epidemic, which benefited mostly criminals.
And what about the years of life lost, the lost productivity, the lost income and taxes from addicts who are dead, disabled or jailed instead of working? Madoff perpetrated the most enormous fraud in Wall Street history. How many people have fallen or will fall into foreclosure and destitution because of him?
How is health care spending something that yields "little or no return for society"? The nation as a whole spent $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007. This is about $7,333 per person. We could all decide tomorrow to bring that number to zero and spend no money on health care, provided we don't mind having the life expectancy of Somalia. I don't know what Mr. Di Maria thinks his life is worth, but I think my life is worth at least $20 a day.
As for Mr. Di Maria's comment about long lines and low-quality health care, famed physicist Stephen Hawking (clearly a person with very high health care needs) said about Britain's National Health Service, "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived." We should all be so fortunate.
Litzi T. Hartley
Naperville
