Feedback: Letters to the editor

I think about the man who had just finished the race and hugged his son, only to have his son die after all his limbs were blown off right in front of him, his wife get hit in the head with shrapnel and suffer brain damage, and to watch his daughter get her leg blown off. My son is the same age and build as that boy, these stories just break my heart.

Man what a two weeks this has been between Boston and Texas.

Thanks for the article.

Brad Blosser

From the mailbox

I just searched online and found the article you wrote.  All I can say is thank you.  You captured my sentiments and feelings perfectly and wrapped in a broader context of the event and its impact. Now I've got an article to give to people instead of telling the story for the 600th time. 

Great job. 

Jeff

Will exchange users have to have medical homes?

Online letter

California must have been a mess before PPACA. In Kentucky, every piece of paper used by an insurance company for distribution to the public must be approved by the Department of Insurance. Never has a marketing piece done other than inform about benefits and rights. If this is already occurring in California, then there will be duplication. Also, by contract participating providers cannot balance bills. In Kentucky, the networks available, which extend nationally, do not result in out of network utilization and if an out of network provider is needed, the carriers negotiate with that provider so, for that service, the patient is going to an in network provider. While we don't always wear shoes in Kentucky, prior to PPACA, everyone in Kentucky could have had health insurance, without exception

Onestep

California: Keep Tom, Dick and Harry out of group market

Online letter

Hope it is now clear to all that somewhere in the Federal Government—Pelosi or her staff, Waxman or his staff, the late Ted Kennedy or his former staffers—there are those who hate agents or anyone who works on commission or by the piece. (This would include bloggers who are paid by the article!) Agents and brokers are regulated, can get sued, can lose their licenses and have ethics requirements (Oh, so does Congress. Not a good example.) Why pay for a whole new unnecessary level of people who have little to no understanding of health care or health insurance.

Onestep

What can the boss tell workers about the exchanges

Online letter

Allison—help me out here. The model notice for employers that do NOT offer coverage has the same verbiage as the notice for employers that do. What is the point of talking about the impact of employer sponsored coverage when it isn't offered?? Am I missing something? I know I have PPACA information overload this week but I don't get this at all.

AbbyW

Mapping the PPACA world for agents and brokers

Online letter

A bunch of nonsense. I want to meet someone who ever got a check under PCIP. They didn't pay anyone they just promised to pay us. Big difference.

As for NAHU and NAIFA they have collected millions of dollars from agents and done nothing for us over the last five years. Any agent that is still a member is wasting their money. We need an agent advocacy group in the worst way.

Donald Kirkendall

Mapping the PPACA world for agents and brokers

Online letter

A bunch of nonsense. I want to meet someone who ever got a check under PCIP. They didn't pay anyone they just promised to pay us. Big difference.

As for NAHU and NAIFA they have collected millions of dollars from agents and done nothing for us over the last five years. Any agent that is still a member is wasting their money. We need an agent advocacy group in the worst way.

Donald Kirkendall

Online letter

"Members of Congress drafted PPACA because the United States is spending more than twice as much on health care as the typical Western European country, getting less access to care for its residents, and ending up with shorter, fatter people who die at a younger age."

Where does one start pointing out the non-sequiturs in this statement? First of all the U.S. has about the same population as the entire EU put together, so comparing a single Western European country with the U.S. is about like comparing California with China. And the population of the U.S. is much more diverse than Western European countries, further spoiling health comparisons. And spending on health care does not equal access to care—nor does access to care always equal better health outcomes, taller (??), skinnier people, or longer life expectancy.

Too bad we can't have a fact-based debate on health care in this country because the media a) doesn't care about the facts and b) intentionally distorts the facts in favor of their own personal biases.

Crimsondynasty323

America's mental health care crisis: A story in numbers

Online letter

Bill just wants to throw lots of our money at a problem and thinks that will fix it. Our government dismantled the best solution for the mentally ill that has worked for centuries—the homes for the mentally ill—and replaced it with a free-for-all that heavily burdens families and taxpayers with paying for drugs and services that do not work. That is why we have a mental illness problem in our country, with our jails standing in as a poor, tragic substitute for what we have lost, and our cemeteries filling up with innocents who our government betrayed through its horribly bad decision.

We premium payers do not need to pay even more for other people's drugs and services that do not touch the problem of keeping everyone safe from each other. When we lost the ability to commit dangerous people to places where they can be safe from us and vice versa, it doesn't matter if we lock up all the guns and pay for tons of free drugs: those mentally ill people will still act out and hurt us because our government is under the delusion that they should be mainstreamed with the rest of us.

Bill is wrong in forcing we premium payers to shoulder even more burdens that are ineffective and pointless. Bill has a bully pulpit to rage his political views on health insurers and he is getting paid to do it. I don't agree at all with his solution, because he wants my money to pay for people who will never be safe from themselves and the rest of us as long as our government refuses to do the right thing and let us commit our mentally ill again to where they belong.

Sunforester

What can the boss tell workers about the exchanges

Online letter

Allison—help me out here. The model notice for employers that do NOT offer coverage has the same verbiage as the notice for employers that do. What is the point of talking about the impact of employer sponsored coverage when it isn't offered?? Am I missing something? I know I have PPACA information overload this week but I don't get this at all.

AbbyW

ELNY liquidation expected in 3Q

Online letter

Who is the head of ALCI? I would like to file a complaint about Jack Dolan's insensitive comment. It is disheartening to hear the ALCI is pleased that benefit cuts will be taking place for injured victims. Shameful ALCI! And exactly which corporations and/or political figures did Mr. Dolan mean are being helped when the restructuring plan comes into play?

Journeys

Online letter

What motive would make a judge try to seal all evidence & stop all federal lawsuits that try to find out what really happened to ELNY assets?

Instant karma