Letters To The Editor

Washington state

State needs patients’ bill of rights

Last month, Gov. Gary Locke asked legislators to support a patients’ bill of rights when they returned to Olympia. His proposal gave patients such rights as a speedy and impartial process when denied coverage by insurers, access to information about health plans and a provision that requires health plan medical directors to have a license to practice medicine in Washington state. Last week both the House and Senate health care committees introduced bills to support such patient protections.

For several months, Citizens United for Reform (CURE), a group of doctors and patients around the state, has been pushing for such changes and supporting basic health care rights for all Washingtonians.

People need the security of knowing that their health plan will cover the services they need to help them stay healthy and get well. Doctors need the security of knowing that health plans will support them and value their treatment decisions. Inexpensive and practical patient protections make sense in order to preserve our quality health care system.

We want Locke and the senators and representatives who have championed patient rights to know that CURE and doctors and patients statewide will work with them this legislative session. We want our health care system in Washington state to remain one of the best in the country. John Gollhofer, M.D. and Jeff Collins, M.D. president and 2nd vice president, Wash. State Medical Assoc., Spokane

Street user tax a dead end idea

Re: Dick Mellor’s letter of Jan. 7 proposing a mileage tax on vehicles.

For heaven’s sake! Why add more paper work and bureaucracy to the system? We already have the machinery in place for that: the gasoline/fuel tax. If the gasoline tax is not enough or is not being spent effectively, correct the problem.

Could this be done by more accountability - not placing the money into the general fund but into a fund specially earmarked for roads and/or increasing the gasoline/fuel tax? Perhaps so.

Mellor’s proposal also only affects Spokane County residents. Many more than local people use the county streets and roads. Under Mellor’s proposal, even if workable, outsiders would not pay their share of road costs.

In addition to the above suggestions, an idea presented by somebody else recently mentioned the need to assess users of studded tires more because of the added wear and tear. That also seems reasonable.

I do agree that something should be done to correct our roads. Ike Fortner Chattaroy

Self-serving is what it’s all about

Sorry, Opinion editor John Webster, Tim Eyman is right, the bureaucrats are going to punish taxpayers for passing Initiative 695. You admitted in a recent editorial that the state Department of Social and Health Services has to answer for its increase in spending and employees while its case load has gone down by 40 percent.

Now let’s take our local Spokane County Health District. It is cutting five nurses from the visiting nurse program, cutting inoculation programs and other services (mostly to the poor), yet it is not cutting one high-paid administrative position, and it has supervisors who supervise no one but themselves.

Multiply this by cities, counties and the state government, where the bureaucrats are rushing to protect their turf, and the waste adds up to millions (if not billions) of dollars.

This attitude of I’m going to get mine and hang the taxpayers is what brought on I-695. If the state doesn’t get the message, it is going to turn into a full-scale revolt. H. Duane Brown Spokane

Card verifies disabled driver

The Washington State Department of Licensing recently sent all current disabled parking privilege holders a special identification card. You carry this card with you when using your parking placard or license plate.

A law officer or authorized volunteer may ask to see your ID card when you park in a disabled parking space. This card will identify that you are authorized to park in disabled parking spaces.

It verifies that the placard or license plates have not been stolen or are not being used by someone other than you. Walter A. Becker Pullman

Other topics

Take Canadians’ loss as a warning

Re: “In Canada, free speech only goes so far” (Jan. 9).

Writer Steven Pearlstein, from the Washington Post, has written an explosive article on the limits placed on free speech by the Canadian government. This should be a wake-up call to all Americans. The mere act of disagreeing with the politically correct is subject to government-imposed sanctions. All this is done under the guise of fairness and decency.

Voters should remember those words next time the thought police and liberal politicians want to pass legislation in order to be fair and decent.

This article is a reminder that in the quest for social Utopia there are always individual liberties to be lost.

The erosion of our liberties via gun legislation, hate crimes legislation, OSHA home inspections, etc., is done slowly and incrementally. They will say it’s “for the children” or some other catchy sound bite intended to tug on our emotions.

Politicians need to be reminded that the purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to limit the powers of government. It was not meant to encroach on the liberties of the citizen. I know that some might say I’m just a gun-toting, hatemongering, homophobic, rascally right winger but these thoughts are still heartfelt. Tony Olivas Greenacres

What’s behind all this meddling?

Purveyor of peace or global bully? That question keeps coming to mind as world events unfold.

The world police force, also known as the United Nations, with the full backing of the United States - or is it the opposite? - continues to intervene in small countries such as Bosnia and Serbia. We spend billions to bomb them into submission and then claim that we are the great world peacemakers.

However, when a significant country like Russia wipes out a country like Chechnya, what action do we take?

Very little is heard from the United Nations or the United States threatening intervention or censure for Russia’s attacks on Grozny.

Where is this holier-than-thou posture now? What is the real purpose of the U.N. and U.S. power plays - spending the United States into poverty or just world domination by the big players? Tom Hayes Spokane

`Fantasia’ at Imax terrific

Concerning the Jan. 10 movie review of “Fantasia 2000” at the Imax (Our Generation).

Apparently, Theresa Carpine was raised on the low-quality, mindless cartoons of recent years, because she obviously did not appreciate the outstanding quality of the cartooning in “Fantasia.” And this quality was simply magnified on the Imax screen, not to mention the music.

If you want a hamburger, pay $1.50. But if you want a steak, pay the $9. You get what you pay for! Go see it; it’s great. Gary Hutson Spokane

Crime pays tolerably well

Re: “Driver gets prison term in traffic death,” (Jan. 11).

If I ever decide to kill someone, I know exactly how I shall do it. I shall drink alcohol in excess and then attack them from behind the wheel of my car. And if I am successful in killing the person, I know the justice system will show me mercy. For even if I’m sentenced to a maximum of seven years, surely, I will not have to serve it all. And even if I do, isn’t that a small price to pay - one year of my own life for every decade of life I stole. Adam J. Wiemers Rathdrum