Letters to the editor (7/14/09)

To Pat McNary: Yes, Wasilla schools do mottos. ("A motto for Wasilla schools?" July 7)

The motto at Wasilla High School is "To Strive, To Seek, To Find and Not To Yield."

We have the motto you mentioned blazing on the walls of the sports complex here. Why do you feel the need to insult an institution that has done no wrong to anyone just because you are angry with Sarah?

And to the ADN, I thought letters to the editor were to be for sharing and discussing opinions. Since when is insulting the largest number of people with the least amount of effort an opinion? I consider his statements to be an open letter to a third party. Which is clearly against ADN policy. Go Warriors!

-- Karen Punturo

Wasilla

Our health system is costly

We don't need to argue about starting a public health option. We have one, the emergency room. When you don't have insurance you wait until your health issue is an emergency, then you go for the most expensive option -- the ER.

The best part is everyone pays, the government partly reimburses the hospitals, the hospitals pass the cost on to the insured, the insurance companies raise premiums. Then the hospital tries to collect as much as they can from the person who was sick and sets up a payment plan or turns them over to a collection agency that will call and harass them endlessly.

The groups that tell us how much a public plan will cost say that they cannot accurately estimate the cost of this current system so it cannot be directly compared to President Obama's plan. It cannot be that hard to improve on our current public option. Instead of arguing whether to fix it, and watering down any real ideas, why don't we have a bipartisan commitment to really fixing it?

-- Joel Rardin

Anchorage

About those 'millions' ...

The recent ADN story headlined "Palin says inquiries wasted 'millions' " ( July 9), in which the governor attacks citizen oversight of her public office, brought the following analogy to mind: "Fox says henhouse repairs wasted 'millions.' "

-- Tony Bickert

Anchorage

Andrew Jackson quit too

Most people might not realize that there is historical precedent for Gov. Palin's resignation. Andrew Jackson quit as governor of the Florida Territory after 11 weeks in 1821. He also resigned as U.S. senator from Tennessee in 1825 after less than a year in office. (He won the popular vote by a wide margin in the 1824 presidential election, but John Quincy Adams became president in what became known as the "corrupt bargain" election.) The Hero of New Orleans was nonetheless elected president in 1828 and 1832.

Jackson, who lived with two dueling bullets permanently lodged in his body, was as unconventional a politician as ever there was. Despite resigning, he ended up as president, and on the $20 bill!

-- John C. Pharr

Anchorage