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What would Americans do?

I would like to respond to Norm Boling’s letter on the need for immigrants to integrate into their new society. In the main, I agree with Mr. Boling’s argument. In the interests of starting a new life, it is sensible for one to learn the language, and at least understand local customs.

However, I don’t feel that it is necessary to completely acclimate to the new culture they find themselves in. Regardless of their reasons for leaving the country of their birth, immigrants do not suddenly stop being from their place of birth, and I see no issue with them continuing to take pride in the customs and traditions of their predecessors.

I can’t imagine that if, for some reason, a native-born American would immigrate to a new country and suddenly cease to be proud of America, or persist in American traditions and practices.

J. Jeff Pugh

Little Rock

Editorial stand applauded

I sincerely applaud your editorial of Oct. 29. Your bravery in dealing with facts, not fairy tales, will undoubtedly prompt some folks to unload their temperament upon you and the newspaper. So what! It’s better to face and print the truth rather than to cover up the facts with lies and falsehood.

Again, thanks for putting into words what needs to be said.

Peace!

Jim Thresher

Jonesboro



Proven wrong

A letter to the editor on Oct. 26 from Elizabeth Ivener stated the fallacy that the health insurance companies are having increases in profits of 300-400 percent. On the same day an Associated Press article in The Sun stated that insurance companies have got a 2.2 percent profit margin, placing them 35th of 53 industries on the Fortune 500 list. I hardly think that is an “obscene profit” as Rep. Nancy Pelosi likes to state.

It seems that people can state any hyperbole that they like to make their case, and no one calls them on it. We need to understand that just because something is repeated numerous times, that does not make it a fact.

We do need to cut costs in health care to make it more affordable, but letting government run anything is asking for trouble. I can’t think of a single thing they do that is cost-effective or well-run. They think the sky is the limit, and budgets mean nothing. If you run out of money, just print more, or borrow from China.

If the government was serious about cutting costs in health care, they could start with serious tort reform. Doctors and other health-care providers pay astronomical malpractice insurance premiums, which are passed along to the consumer. That’s how economics work.

They order unnecessary tests in order to cover themselves from liability. An example of this happened to me about a year ago. I had to go to the emergency room for a migraine that wouldn’t go away. They treated the headache, but the ER doctor insisted that I have a CT scan of my brain. She and I both knew that it was just a migraine, but she wanted to cover any possibility that it might be a tumor or something, so I went along. I don’t blame her; she gave me excellent care but felt the need to order a test that really wasn’t necessary.

Now, that being said, neither Congress nor the president will ever go for tort reform because they’re lawyers themselves, and they must look out for their lawyer buddies. So they will never convince me that they are serious about health care. They just want more control over this formerly fine country.

Julie Clark

Jonesboro

Come into the light

With Sen. Reid’s announcement to include a public health insurance option in the Senate’s health-care reform bill, the hypocrites have been rolling out their objections. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, chief among them.

Since 2003 the United States has spent billions of dollars supporting universal health care in Iraq. Universal health care is mandated by the Iraqi constitution that we helped frame. For instance, the USAID Web site, the government entity dispensing U.S. foreign aid, brags about immunizing 97 percent of Iraqi children.

I think that is great, but what about American children’s health care? More U.S. military foreign aid goes to Israel than any other country, and Israel also has universal health care. So we help in large part to provide Israel’s security so they can have universal health care. Israeli’s health-care system, by the way, provides abortions to victims of rape and incest, illegitimate conceptions, birth defects present in the fetus, or in the case of danger to the health of the mother.

United Nations reports show that Iraq allows abortions in case of danger to the woman’s health. One of the major arguments of the opponents of a public health insurance option is that it would in a roundabout way help fund abortions. Let the hypocrites who support Israel or Iraq without conditions against funding abortion argue their case now.

Under the Bush administration, with the compliance of Congress, we spent billions of dollars supporting countries that have universal health care. President Obama wants to spend about the same amount of money over a 10-year period to provide Americans with the same health-care coverage we have been subsidizing abroad.

Let the hypocrites come into the light.

Dale Clark

Jonesboro

Privatize it all

During the past 33 years I’ve read thousands of letters to the editor in The Jonesboro Sun. I even wrote a few. The recent letter from Timothy Bowen is one of the best. It clearly captures where America stands in regard to a complex society.

America is the best place on earth. It’s a place where no one has a right to break the law, but we all have the right to be wrong. For example, many Americans believe America is a democracy. But they are wrong. Many believe Social Security might one day go bankrupt. But they are wrong.

In our current national debate over health care, some have come to believe socialism-creeping socialism is a new menace facing the American people. Some even think socialist and communist are synonymous. But they are wrong.

Maybe we should privatize the socialist American military. But I sure hope we don’t because then it would operate like our current health-care system. A for-profit military seems wrong.

Maybe we should certainly privatize our socialist educational system. Some research indicates our current socialist educational system spends between $8,000 and $12,000 per year to educate one student where private for profit systems spend between $4,000 and $5,000 per year on each student.

Maybe we should privatize our socialist prison system. Again, research indicates our current socialist prison system spends far more per inmate per year than would a private for-profit system of maintaining prisons.

Maybe we should privatize our socialist Social Security retirement system. Maybe we should privatize our socialist Medicare system. Maybe we should privatize the socialist FDA. And on and on and on.

I predict our military will stay socialist (government run), our educational system for the most part will remain socialist (government run), and our prisons for the most part will remain socialist (government run). Ditto for Social Security and Medicare and the FDA.

As for health care, it appears America will remain for the most part capitalist (private run, for profit), thus leaving millions of Americans uninsured. But I may be wrong.

Terry Dancer

Jonesboro