Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Casinos should pay costs they create

Reporters say we must provide more money for gambling addiction counseling and more law enforcement because of increased crime caused by area casinos. That means increased taxes!

Officials permit almost anybody to open a casino. Now, they’re surprised at the resulting increased crime and need for gambling addiction counseling. What did they expect?

We didn’t want the casinos. We wrote letters to the governor asking him to vote against the casino in Airway Heights. By his response, we knew he would vote for it. And he did.

We feel that, since we didn’t want casinos, it’s not fair that taxpayers must pay for the consequences. It should be up to casino owners to pay for new law enforcement officers and counseling services. Before casinos can open, permits should state that owners will pay the expenses for all necessary new law enforcement officers and mental health counselors. Casinos already operating should also contribute to these expenses.

In fact, casino owners should also have to pay expenses for consultants the city and/or county would probably have to hire to do a survey to determine the cost. That’s how it goes, isn’t it?

Taxpayers pay thousands of dollars for consultants to come to Spokane and tell us what we should do before we do anything. Perhaps we should have called in consultants before we allowed casino gambling.

Property and business owners of Spokane are tired of carrying the tax burdens caused by irresponsible decisions. Let’s put the expense back in the lap of those who are causing the problems - the casino owners. Eleanor D. Laubach Spokane

RFP railroaded to acceptance

At a recent commissioners’ meeting, the decision to move ahead with the county’s request for proposal on mental health care services was, for me, a sad one.

Foremost, there was the fact that the meeting was not a public one. Then, that Kasey Kramer and Raphaela Ortiz were allowed to testify for the proposal was also unfair. They demurely told the commissioners they could manage the $47 million utilization management piece with an added staff of nine people. Ortiz has said the piece can be managed with a 25 percent maximum administration cost. Presently, Spokane Mental Health uses 12 percent, with the remainder poured into services.

Commissioner Kate McCaslin said that Jan Hoppler from the state Department of Mental Health informed her that although funding would not be pulled, the county would lose control of the funding. On the contrary, Hoppler has approved three “integrated waiver contracts” identical or very similar to the current mental health system. They are for Gray’s Harbor, Northsound and Southwest. I am waiting for Hoppler to call me right now to see what she says about this.

“It is a discredit to the community to not go ahead with the RFP,” McCaslin said.

How does that take into account what Commissioner Phil Harris said about having received received a deluge of mail, hundreds of letters, and only a “sprinkling, three or four letters” said anything negative about the current system?

It’s a discredit to the community that we were not allowed to have a voice and give public testimony concerning this issue. Tammy Ensign Spokane

People wait for parking spots now

Whee! We have changed some of the faces but it still is send in the clowns!

Angle parking won’t work because there will be people waiting for the current occupant to vacate the space? My guess is the person who made this observation has not been downtown lately. Drivers in fact do wait while another driver leaves. It appears that downtown would be gaining more on street parking. Pray tell, what is wrong with that?

Then there is a proposal to add about $4 to the average utility bill. That is an 8 percent increase to my monthly bill.

We who are on Social Security got a whopping 1.3 percent raise for next year. What is wrong with revealing the actual percentage rate? What about the 6 percent increase in taxes? Is that just for city folks? What about all the folks who live in the county and use our facilities for work, shopping, etc? Are they going to be our guests? What are the proposed increases in the employees’ paychecks?

There are lots of unanswered questions in the budget proposal. I would like to see the real facts. Charles E. McCollim Spokane

HEALTH CARE

Understand the system? Good luck

Having been recently victimized by an HMO about to cancel its insurance of Idaho seniors, my wife and I, both retired, began investigating the arcane subject of health care options in America.

Each phone call we made seeking information was answered by voice mail. In those rare instances when our calls were returned, we were treated to a heaping dish of gobbledygook, each concocted from a completely different recipe.

After suffering so many frustrations, we were astounded to read in your paper that one of the requirements being suggested for Idaho high school graduation is that students be able to “distinguish between the cost and benefits of choosing a preferred provider organization, health maintenance organization and basic health care coverage for traditional and alternative health care services.”

It’s been my experience that even those people who are making a living in the industry can’t do that. I would be surprised if those who framed the prospective new requirement can.

Who would provide the material for the textbook? If every avenue of today’s health care “system” were to be included, the book would rival the Bible for both length and variety of interpretations. If a high school student who can answer the suggested problem is discovered, I hope he or she will come and explain it to me. No one else has been able to.

But then, what can we expect from people who believe that voice mail is an efficient way of communicating? Bob R. Hamilton Sagle, Idaho

Home health care delivered a blow

Changes in the Social Security and Medicare programs have seriously undermined not only the elderly. Many younger individuals are currently in the system.

When Medicare is the primary insurance, Medigap and other insurance companies follow the guidelines set forth by Medicare. HMO organizations and hospitals follow the criteria with shorter hospitalization, eliminating some services, rejecting some tests and various medications as too costly.

A death sentence was voted into law by the current administration and Congress which involves thousands of citizens. These citizens’ only crime is that they suffer from strokes, neurological disorders or other medical problems that render them bed patients. Although their condition is stabilized by medications, they require 24-hour care. In many cases, they cannot feed themselves, move or call for help. To see a doctor they must be transported by specialized vehicle.

The changes in Medicare virtually eliminated home health care provisions. In other words, Medicare doesn’t consider such individuals as sick or requiring home health care.

Several members of Congress indicated their intent was to reduce the overall cost of Medicare. Physicians readily admit that these individuals need home health care, but with the Medicare restraints they can do nothing for them until another medical symptom arises.

The cost reduction claimed is a fallacy. The elderly are continuously shuffled in and out of hospitals after brief stays. Hospital costs can exceed $2,000 or more a day. How many days of hospitalization are required to exceed the cost of home health care? Eugene H. Barker St. Maries, Idaho

OVER THE LINE

Woman killed my best friend

Re: “Drunken driver wants back into county jail,” (Oct. 27). The kid she (Connie Bickley) killed was my best friend. His name is Nick Scherling.

I miss doing all the things that we did together. We had some good times together either going to watch a movie or just hanging out. The bad thing is that I still owe him a Wonderland free golf pass. I still have it, too. I probably will hang on to it now. I think that the lady shouldn’t get the privileges of counseling and self-help classes because she was sentenced, and that was the consequence for her actions.

I just wish that I could have made my last words to him. Richard Jarvis Spokane

Driver needs compassion, too

Re: “Huge outpouring helps buoy man who lost his family,” (Nov. 20). My heart goes out to the driver of the vehicle who hit these people. I am sure that she will forever be haunted by this tragic accident.

My brother and I had met her just two days before the accident, and found her to be a warm, caring, hard-working person, whose life will now never be the same. There never seems to be anyone who helps these people. Michael C. Momb Newman Lake

Postal Service - slow to none

Could someone please tell me what is going on at the Spokane post office?

I suppose it’s considered bad form for newcomers to whine but this is ridiculous. Since moving here two months ago, I have discovered there is a problem with first-class mail arriving at its destination in timely fashion bearing a Spokane postmark. Some examples:

1. First-class letter bearing badly needed funds to my son in school in Denver, Colo., mailed from Post Falls, on Nov. 6. My son calls a fourth time the evening of Nov. 19 to let me know it arrived that day! He tells me it bears a postmark of Spokane, Nov. 6. Thirteen days!

2. Birthday card to relative in Midland, Texas. Her birthday is Nov. 11, a mail holiday, so I “mail early” by first class on Nov. 3. She calls to thank me, saying it arrived on Nov. 13. Ten days!

3. First-class postcard to Austin, Texas, mailed Oct. 31, arrives Nov. 12. Thirteen days!

4. First-class postcard returned by Spokane Post Office as “undeliverable,” even though the address as written was correct.

I could go on, and it seems to be getting worse.

Now that I am aware of it, I have been making a point of sending payments far in advance of their due dates. Thank God for e-mail, but it can’t serve for everything. What is the problem and how can it be corrected?

Sorry to complain, but I’m not used to mail service like this. Robert Cardwell Post Falls