Letters to the Editor - 6/30/2009

Get probe rolling

Editor: District Attorney Andy Jarbola holds a particularly responsible office. Among the responsibilities is to investigate and prosecute crimes of public offenses and workers in the public offices.

A ripe and urgent challenge involves the Single Tax Office. Certainly $12.3 million can't lose its way through the commercial world without some human culpability.

I suggest that an investigative grand jury be convened to order this conundrum. Prosecute the bad guys and send them to the "pokey."

Query - Who signed the signature card contract when the account was opened? How much of the $60,000 to $70,000 in interest was paid to whom? And when?

Thank you, Mr. Jarbola, for undertaking this task.

PAUL H. PRICE

Scranton

Build on Medicare

Editor: I take exception to the June 21 column by NEPA Blue Cross CEO Denise Cesare and many area hospital presidents on health care reform.

They are misleading in speaking about a "government-run plan." Even the "public-option plan" they refer to would only be financed by the federal government. The health care professionals would still be providing health care, not the government.

A single-payer plan, not a public option, is the only way to reduce costs and provide coverage to all. Expanding Medicare to cover everyone is the best way to achieve these goals. The "power of the private markets" brings us annual double-digit increases in premiums and the hundreds of millions of dollars in surplus that Blue Cross NEPA maintains.

A government mandate to purchase insurance is unconstitutional and immoral. It should be stopped at all cost if it is part of President Obama's health care reform. It will be a boon for the insurance industry at the expense of the 50 million or so who do not have coverage now. I am sure they would have coverage if they could afford to do so.

JAY SWEENEY

Falls Twp.,

Wyoming County

Single payer best

Editor: Regarding Cathy Strauch's June 26 letter: I am presently in my early 70s. During my working years I was always covered by health insurance, either through my own companies or those for which I worked.

During the 1960s into the 1990s the cost was within reason. Not necessarily cheap, but for the most part, affordable. The coverage varied depending on what one wanted to pay, and could afford.

When my kids were born (in the '60s and early '70s) in a New York City hospital, I recall my wife wanting a private room. When we checked out five days later, I paid the hospital all of $125 for her and the baby. Why are hospital costs today in the thousands per day? I have never heard an answer to that question. Is it because many hospitals are now for-profit and not nonprofit?

I recently fell, and EMS responded and took me to the hospital. I was given a battery of tests and discharged four hours later with a bill for $9,545. Medicare will probably pay around $750 and my supplement another $150. The poor slob without insurance will probably get stuck with the full amount.

When our government decided to try to cap costs by paying HMOs 95 percent of its cost, the idea sounded fine. However, through whatever chicanery our politicians used, HMOs are now getting 110 percent of what it cost Medicare. That would be like not allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Where is the logic to that?

Finally, I come to Medicare. I have never, ever found a better health system. I go to any doctor I want. If the doctor accepts Medicare he will only get paid what Medicare approves. Do an unauthorized test and he does not get paid for it. Now, when I go to a doctor, I know I will not pay anything. Medicare pays 80 percent of the approved fees and the supplemental insurance pays the balance.

Any insurance is paid for by fees figured out by actuaries. Since Medicare covers the elderly, it figures that its costs are high. Add in the huge number of younger people and the limited usage and you have a huge influx of dollars and a limited amount of payout. Think about it. Single payer is the way to go.

SEYMOUR L. STEINSALTZ

Greentown,

Pike County

Take it to street

Editor: As the worldwide mourning of Michael Jackson continues, what has Scranton done to accommodate its own legions of Jacko junkies?

There are no stars on the sidewalk to observe, as Mr. Jackson has in Hollywood. New York City has the famed Apollo Theater, where Mr. Jackson is regarded as a legend and to where his despondent fans are making daily pilgrimages. "The Gloved One," however, never performed in the Electric City.

But Scranton has something that fits the bill. Right in the heart of West Side it has a Jackson Street.

For one day, how about an official proclamation renaming it "Michael Jackson Street"?

I don't know if I would bring my replica white glove or if I would moonwalk over the potholes to get there, but, as Jacko himself once said, "I'll Be There."

VINCE MORABITO

Scranton

Absentee dad

Editor: What bothers me the most about South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's saga is neither the affair nor the possibility of his using taxpayers' dollars to fund his "adventure."

It is the placing of his own wants and desires ahead of being with his four boys on Father's Day.

SUSAN ZITO

Greentown, Pike County

Il intentions

Editor: The media is in a purple-veined dither. North Korea is about to nuke Hawaii. Alternately, it's Oregon, California, or more expansively, the entire west coast.

But look at a map. Where else is North Korea going to overfly its missiles? To the west over China; what about the east or north over Russia; how about the south over Australia? No, North Korea to going to vector its rockets away from land over the Pacific just as we avoid land by using the Atlantic Ocean. Unavoidably, that puts us in the crosshairs.

But why does that "rogue" nation want atomic weapons? To attack America? The leader of that communist nation, Kim Jong Il, just might be crazy, or just acting that way, or simply painted to be nuts. But the dear leader is not stupid. A pre-emptive nuclear attack on any nation would mean the annihilation of himself and his regime.

However, very probably the dear leader is paranoid. So what's the best way to handle a dictator who thinks the world is out to destroy him?

The worst way is to try to frustrate the only means he believes he has to defend himself - an atomic bomb. Let Jong Il have his bomb. Really, there's no way to prevent it. Then give him assurances that the United States has no aggressive designs on him, his government, or his nation.

What is being done is the opposite. We are pursuing a hopeless endeavor to prevent him from acquiring nuclear weapons. This will only strengthen his resolve to "protect" himself. Kim wants the bomb not for aggression. He wants it for the same reason we and the eight members of the nuclear club want it - for a deterrent.

It's called MAD, mutually assured destruction, an apt acronym. But it's worked for the past 65 years. Will it continue to work? Let's hope so. There is no alternative.

BOB SCROGGINS

New Milford,

PIKE COUNTY