Letters for Saturday, Oct. 11

We saw the train wreck coming

The people of the 5th District saw the train wreck coming, the inevitable and cruel dismantling of health care services throughout Washington state and the U.S., leading to a crisis in our health care system.

Our own Rep. Baumgartner is responsible in part for this crisis, voting in haste for the BBB Bill in July.

The attack on Medicaid is life threatening to those who can’t afford to live without insurance, facing the prospect of unaffordable health care.

And Baumgartner knows it!

On Sept. 23, Baumgartner and Rep. Dan Newhouse sent a letter to Secretary of HHS Kennedy and Dr. Oz.

In the letter, they begged for an equitable rural distribution of the Rural Health Transformation Program funds.

This arguably underfunded federal health care program must be divvied up between all 50 states.

Emergency!

Baumgartner also misleads 5th District taxpayers about ACA benefits for migrants, when he knows full well that unauthorized immigrants aren’t eligible for ACA benefits, and they aren’t allowed to enroll in Medicaid under federal law.

He can be a part of ending the government shutdown by voting to extend the Premium Tax Credit subsidies for purchasing health care insurance with the ACA to citizens he claims to represent.

Will he do the right thing for the people of the 5th District?

Ensuring that our hospitals, clinics and nursing homes won’t shut down will go a long way!

Diane L. Shuman

Spokane

Unfaithful rep

Whenever I see the newsletter from our so-called representative pop up, I know I’m in for an eye roll. The last one was no different. He is parroting the bald-faced lie that this shutdown is due to democrats wanting to have taxpayers be “forced to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants”. He either believes this to be true without checking for himself or is intentionally delivering false information to his constituents for manipulative purposes. Neither is something we want from an elected official. He should consult with our excellent senator, Patty Murray, who wrote the bill’s language, to set him straight.

This is a man who has enthusiastically voted against keeping a standard of care for his rural and senior constituents and is now proudly shutting down the government because he doesn’t want to ensure everyone’s insurance premiums don’t skyrocket in the new year.

We as voters have unfortunately peter principled him up to his level of incompetence and need to remedy that next fall. He clearly cares more about being with the “in group” than he does about the people of the 5th, or the Constitution.

Michael Stanger

Spokane

Poor media coverage

I’ve gone to previous Renaissance Festivals, the ones in Colbert and larger ones in other areas. In those other regions, I see advertising and media coverage before the event. Imagine my disappointment to see a Spokesman article the day after the event. It would have been much more useful a week before, to let people know about it. Poor media coverage.

David Teich

Spokane Valley