Opinion: Health care debate

COMPASS: PERRY MERKEL

Status quo no option for small businesses

It has become clear to me, as a small business owner, that the debate about health care reform has reached a critical moment. Over the summer, a shrill minority monopolized the public stage by playing on people’s fears in their attempt to derail much-needed change.

EDITORIAL

Our view: Time to get serious

President Obama on Wednesday forcefully laid out a plan to eliminate the worst ills of the U.S. health insurance system and set America on a better, more sustainable course.

EDITORIAL

Our view: On the fence

Open-minded skepticism about health care reform can produce a stronger final result.

COMPASS: ROLAND SHANKS

Health care should be considered a right

I've been thinking a lot about the health care reform debate since I watched the news coverage of Sen. Ted Kennedy's funeral. As a 3 1/2-year lung cancer survivor I've lived with and dealt with many of the things the reform would change.

EDITORIAL

Our view: One reason for reform

Employees of small businesses are often stuck without coverage in our current health care system. That needs to change.

COMPASS: JEFF PANTAGES

We can't afford health care overhaul

The Obama administration just announced that the cumulative budget deficit from 2010 to 2019 would be $9 trillion, not the $7 trillion it originally forecast in February. That brings its numbers much closer to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates. Basically, the White House abandoned its rosy economic scenario and is now more in line with mainstream economist's views.

DON IAN GRAY

Don't wait for Congress; state should offer its own catastrophic health plan to Alaskans

I believe the State of Alaska should self-insure all its citizens for Catastrophic Health Care insurance coverage. Coverage should be for all medical expenses above an agreed on figure, the "catastrophic level": $20,000; $30,000; $50,000 -- whatever the Legislature can agree on.

PAUL JENKINS

Critic of Obama's health plan on the mark

Whole Foods Market CEO and co-founder John Mackey has ticked off the thought police by suggesting the Obamacare scam is not the best, and only, answer to this nation's health care snarl. It is enough to make you want to shop at his stores.

ELISE PATKOTAK

News flash to Democrats: You won!

Here's a message I would like someone to take back to the Democratic Party in DC. You won. Yep, you really did. You won. I can see where there are simply not enough media platforms in today's world to get that news through to you.

COMPASS: JEFFREY W. DAVIS

'Public option' as unhealthy as Medicare

Health care reform is a tremendously important issue. We at Premera strongly support health care reform, especially that which improves access to coverage for all Americans and helps bring down the ever-rising health care cost trends.

EDITORIAL

Our view: Cutting costs

Congress should find ways to encourage better primary care and reduce expensive medical tests that aren't necessary.

COMPASS

Health reform is matter of life and death

I'm angry, frustrated and disillusioned. Health care reform can't be that hard. Years of hoping, months of promises and now weeks of stalling and political rhetoric have driven me to write my first letter. In a news-scape littered with hyperbole, if anything rises to a real crisis in our country right now, the state of health care is it. This is literally about life and death.

COMPASS

Plans to extend health care may reduce it

To his credit President Obama has championed health care reform as an economic and moral imperative. Current increases in health care spending are unsustainable and the number of patients without access to basic health care is unacceptable.

COMPASS

Hard decisions needed on health care costs

Recently our office received a brochure for a new piece of surgical equipment that nicely encapsulated the dilemma we face in health care. At the top of the brochure, in big letters, the manufacturer unabashedly promoted this new device as a "revenue generator." To understand why this is so significant, it is important to realize that the health reform debate revolves around two issues, access and cost.

EDITORIAL

Our view: Healthier America

Sen. Begich's views on the goals of health reform are solid. We need to hear more from him on how to achieve them.

EDITORIAL

Our view: Health care distraction

We can make a better health care system, but angry screaming and mindless shouts of "NO!" won't get us there.

ALASKA ALMANAC

U.S. health $ vs. the world

A comparison of health care costs and results

Don't try to fix health care all at once

Highlights from an interview with Sen. Lisa Murkowski

COMPASS

Current health care system is intolerable

We should throw out the existing health insurance system and replace it with a single payer, national health care plan, similar to what every other Western industrialized, and some non-Western industrialized nations enjoy.

COMPASS

Public option would be a fair competitor

Over the past three years, I have researched the track record of numerous health care reform initiatives. Based on that work, I am confident a properly constructed public insurance option will not harm the private insurance industry.