Anchorage Daily News

Put up dome for the homeless

The homeless crisis in Anchorage is inexcusable for a wealthy city, state and nation. I know what it's like to get off the plane and drag my duffel bag through the snow to the homeless shelter.

I know the agony of 25 years of treatment-resistant depression and the heartbreak of uncaring so-called Christians who mock and ignore the homeless and poor. This past winter, I was forced to work under a junk car after past neck surgery to try to get transportation. I was also shocked to hear a Christian volunteer complain when hungry people tried to sneak a second cup of soup from the soup kitchen.

There are 3,000 homeless people in this city and that's before the unemployment checks run out. I for one have a hard time sleeping knowing they're out there.

The city needs to put up an emergency tent dome immediately and staff it with two police officers. They put up domes for golf and youth sports, why not for people suffering from the agony of deadly homelessness?

-- Harold Bartko Jr.

Anchorage

Make insurance competitive

Our health care is a shameful mess. We pay more for less care, less healthy people, a lower life expectancy and an infant mortality rate that ties our rank at 29th with Slovakia and Poland. Costs are out of control; there are layers of administrative waste in hospitals, insurance companies and doctors' offices under the current system. While a single-payer system is best, there is not the political will to overcome the paid lobbyists of the bloated health care system.

At minimum we need a government-sponsored insurance plan option to keep the private insurers cost-competitive. A government plan would act like Wal-Mart does on the retail side: force inefficient businesses into restructuring or different lines of work. The public will benefit with a government option under health care as they did with competitive retail prices.

Competition alone will drive down the costs of premiums -- premiums that are rising at three times the rate of wages.

-- Earl Krygier

Anchorage

McCain never quit, Palin

Sarah Palin should take lessons on how to emulate John McCain. For years when he was a POW he was tortured, both physically and psychologically, and never gave up. Whatever Sarah's travails are, they are a walk in the park compared with what he endured.

-- Peter Jenkins

Eagle River

Lawmakers may fail us again

It appears Congress is verging on failing Americans again. The chance of meaningful health care reform being passed before the August recess looks bleak. With much of Congress in the hip pocket of the insurance and drug industries, is it any surprise?

What will our good senators and representatives say when they come home in failure to the families of the 20,000 Americans who will die this year because they have no health insurance, to laid-off workers who have lost their insurance, leaving them and their families at risk of financial ruin? What will they tell someone who needs a life-saving transplant or cancer treatment but can't afford it out of pocket?

Some 50 million people in this country have no insurance; 50 million more are underinsured, leaving them unable to seek care because their deductibles and co-pays are so high they can't afford them. What will Alaska's congressional delegation, with its publicly subsidized health care plan, tell us if they fail to pass health care reform for the rest of America?

-- Paul Jackson

Anchorage

Say no to health bureaucracy

Lost in the nationalized health care debate is the incontestable fact that nowhere in the Constitution does it authorize Congress to confiscate our money to fund health care. One can only imagine the pain we would feel if our health care needs are controlled by the bureaucratic ignorati and thus make "waterboarding" seem like blowing soap bubbles.

To Begich, Murkowski and Young: vote NO on this bureaucracy of all bureaucracies.

-- Jim Dore

Anchorage

Palin the target of bullies

Why is everyone picking on Sarah Palin? Leave her alone. She is being bullied and ganged up on.

-- Tom Price

Anchorage

'

Vandal damaged garden

Whoever drove their truck into the beautiful heirloom peony garden Graeme Pincott developed around the 880 N St. business condo should hang their head(s) in shame. Those plants were 14 years old and it took seven years to establish that garden along with the surrounding delphiniums, Himalayan poppies, cosmos, etc.

In addition, Graeme plants well over 1000 imported tulip bulbs each year that are gorgeous in the spring. He spent many, many hours on the garden, which is visited by the horse-drawn carriages, passers-by and people making deliberate trips to see the flowers. Fie on all vandals -- move to a concrete jungle and leave other people's property alone.

-- Stephanie Bissland

Anchorage

See what you whiners did?

To all the people who whined and moaned about Mrs. Palin, I hope you're happy. You finally threw enough complaints at her; she's finally had enough. I hope your next governor is another Murkowski. Maybe you'll be happy then. I don't know if you are jealous or scared of her, but you got the job done. Thanks a lot, you whiners, for getting rid of one of the best governors we ever had.

-- Earl Thompson

Wasilla

Hit litterers where it hurts

In response to Mark Schroeder's compass about the Little Campbell Creek cleanup, he was right on: Litter and debris don't appear on our streets and playgrounds and in creek beds by accident.

Come on, people, littering is against the law. Maybe if several hundred tickets were written for littering, it would help run down our $20 million deficit.

-- Cheryl Haas

Anchorage

ADVERTISEMENT