Alaska News

Letters to the editor (1/12/10)

Fund payout's running just fine

Hollis French and Harry Crawford hold a press conference to announce that they will guarantee Permanent Fund checks by making it a part of the state constitution. You've gotta love entertainment like this!

Front-page headlines in the Daily News and top story on the local evening news. Have I missed something? Has this been a pressing issue?

Seems like things have been going fine from my perspective. I've lived here 23 years and the checks seem to make it to my mailbox each year.

Oh, wait, French is running for governor, isn't he? And if I'm not mistaken, Crawford is running for Don Young's seat in Congress. What a coincidence! This couldn't possibly be campaign shenanigans, could it?

How about focusing on growing our economy instead of this populist drivel. Alaskans who voted to create the Permanent Fund had it right.

No need to change it.

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-- Todd Christenson

Anchorage

Put buy-in option back in the bill

Anything that might have actually made a real bottom-line difference has been systematically excluded or stripped out of the health care bill, killed off by a lethal combination of weak-minded liberals too timid to fight for their constituents and stubbornly corrupt industry quislings on the other side. And those are just the Democrats -- not that the Republicans are any better.

The Medicare buy-in option must be put back in the bill. This is non-negotiable. This is our demand and we're sticking to it. If not now, when?

Anything else is a huge giveaway to the health insurance corporations that will further cripple any economic recovery.

-- T. Frank Box

Anchorage

Senators, work for all

No matter which side of the health care bill fence you are on, you have to question the sincerity of the senators who sold their vote in return for special treatment for their state. The bill either solves health care concerns for the country or it needs revision. No matter how naïve this sounds, they are U.S. senators elected with the goal of working for the common good for all Americans, not whether the bill benefits an individual state.

Consider that if the concessions to the last few holdout senators (like Nebraska's Sen. Nelson) had not been made, would the result have been a "no" vote? No matter what the answer to that question is, it does not bode well for the rest of us. It matters a lot whether they voted with the party or with the country in mind. Painting all senators with the same self-serving brush is not fair, but the reality is that any one of them could have been the deciding voter.

-- Robert Biringer

Anchorage

Drivers, not highway, have gotten far worse

I've lived in Alaska for the last 12 years and it amazes me no end that even here, where the risk of icy and snow-covered roads spans nearly six months of the year, people still don't know how to drive in the winter. Every snowstorm brings out the bizarre mix of snail-paced traffic and flipped cars along the Seward Highway, inside Anchorage, on flat, straight stretches of the highway.

The Turnagain Arm stretch of the Seward Highway isn't getting more dangerous; instead, it seems that people are overall getting worse and worse at driving. I don't think it's too much to ask that people learn how to drive at or only slightly below the speed limit even with reduced visibility and some snow on the road.

Also, get snow tires -- they're well worth the investment. I am not advocating driving outside of your capabilities, but if you're only capable of driving 40 mph on the highways during a snowfall, I strongly suggest you find yourself a warmer state to live in.

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-- Marcin Druzdzel

Anchorage

By voting for health care bill, Begich reneged on his oath

Sen. Begich voted for a bill that will make health care more expensive and less effective, will introduce another party between you and your doctor, and will (unconstitutionally) reduce patient choice and coerce people to buy insurance. To get expanded health insurance coverage we must reduce costs. Enhanced cost transparency, patient choice and greater competition will reduce costs. Basic ways to achieve these: Make individual policies portable across state lines; extend the employer-provided insurance tax exemption to individuals; enact state and federal tort limits for malpractice to eliminate defensive medicine; expand health savings accounts; require providers to post standard fee schedules; limit bills to the non-insured to 125 percent to 135 percent of Medicare reimbursement rates; and ensure adequate funding of state risk pools.

These measures would cost less than $175 billion over 10 years without any of the rationing, bureaucracy and disincentivized innovation inherent to all government systems -- and it's even consistent with the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Sen. Begich broke his oath with one vote already. Don't let him do it again!

-- Bill Chapman

Eagle River

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