Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 2, 1994 TAG: 9403030004
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Health-insurance companies have been tightly regulated by state and federal governments for more than 50 years and operate under government rules and guidelines. These governments could have changed the rules at any time to eliminate the pre-existing-condition problem, disparity in rates, or problems with access to insurance. Certainly no individual insurance company could have done so unilaterally in such a highly competitive market. Insurance companies simply play by rules set down for them by state and federal governments.
From experience, no private insurance company in this country requires as much unnecessary administrative paperwork to handle claims as does the federal government-administrated Medicare and Medicaid programs.
If anything, private insurance companies and their customers have borne the brunt of cost shifting caused by the federal government. Neither Medicaid nor Medicare pay the full cost of medical services, so cost is shifted to the insured. There's also a great number of indigent people not on Medicare or Medicaid who can't afford medical insurance or medical care, but there's no sign that either our state or federal governments are willing to accept responsibility of helping them directly.
The Clinton health-care proposal is yet another way for the federal government to shift costs, this time to employees.
WILLIAM F. ROCK
ROANOKE
Are these leaders our just desserts?
OUR BELOVED Virginia, mother of presidents, that gave us Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, has now blessed us with George Allen, Pat Robertson, Oliver North and Lyndon LaRouche. Is this a make-up call by the gods of politics or what? How did this plague of frogs and locusts come about? Is it true that we get the type of leaders we deserve? Let's look at the record.
We once closed our schools, rather than integrate; the tobacco lobby cheerfully aids and abets the increase of lung cancer and heart disease; the National Rifle Association advocates an assault weapon in every home; and the religious right would close our public schools again, indoctrinating our children with their own brand of intolerance.
Small wonder Virginia has become a breeding ground for everything from snake handlers to bigamists to television evangelists to indicted politicians. Our founding fathers must be spinning in their graves like pinwheels.
JOHN W. SLAYTON
ROANOKE
Making criminals of decal violators
IN THE JAN. 26 edition of this newspaper, the headline of a news article by staff writer David M. Poole read, ``Crime issue dominates - Supervisors vote to hire 4 county police officers.''
Upon reading the news story, I discovered the four officers had been hired to handle traffic tickets and decal violations. The crime issues being discussed also included proposed expansion of the county jail and arresting drunken drivers.
When I first saw the headline, I thought the supervisors were ready to launch an all-out attack on violent crime and that a consensus had been reached on targeting and putting away for good career criminals who commit a majority of the crimes. I also thought that perhaps Gov. Allen's program regarding parole had been endorsed.
What's wrong here? Was the headline misleading, or do the supervisors feel handing out traffic tickets and expanding the jail will reduce the serious violent crimes we're experiencing?
DON KEESEY
ROANOKE
Don't put dollars before children
IT'S A SHAME children should suffer for the profits of adults. The General Assembly voted down a bill to allow flexibility in school schedules. In some areas, this flexibility could offset closings on inclement weather days that have to be made up.
Those with children are having to change their schedules to suit the tourism industry. Granted, there's a lot of money in the industry (especially for shareholders), but what's in it for our children?
Our children are already suffering - classes are larger, teachers suffer burnout, and children aren't making the grades. The United States is behind other countries in education. It's not high on our lists of priorities, and it shows. Children are more concerned with clothes, makeup, getting even with someone and sex than they are with getting a good education.
Now we have a bill to govern children who've been suspended three times. They're out of control by the time they've reached a third suspension. Where are their parents? Where's the authority?
We, the parents, are responsible for our children's attitudes and actions. Maybe we need to step back and take a look at ourselves.
RITA JOHNSON
BEDFORD
Time for Apco to go underground
IT'S HIGH time all electric-power users in the Appalachian Power Co. area get together to eliminate the constant power outages in inclement weather.
If all power lines were underground, then 95 percent to 98 percent of power outage due to trees, etc., would be eliminated. How can this be done easily? Get the State Corporation Commission to require underground wiring. In all of our bad winter storms in the past two or three years, telephones were in operation almost 100 percent. Why? Telephone wires are underground.
Apco will say it can't afford it. Yet it wants to spend more than $150 million on a 750,000-kv line from West Virginia through the Jefferson National Forest and further. It's ridiculous. Since it nets 13 percent and is a child of American Electric Power, there's no financial reason it can't find the money.
Doing this would, in several years, pay for itself in the areas of maintenance and perpetual power in any storm. Ladies, gentlemen, businesses, industry, commerce, school systems, etc., let's form an organization and force it to be done.
The State Corporation Commission will protect the power company as long as it can. Apco will stall, cry and try to get this monkey off its back as it wants to maintain the status quo. Reforms are long overdue. Power outages, even in wind storms, are laughable. There's sufficient technology available to do the job at the least cost.
GEORGE M. SPINNETT
HENRY
All are entitled to an excuse
I DON'T usually write letters to the editor, but I must express an opinion about the Feb. 17 letter by Maria Thompson Loos, ``Tonya: America's ideal?''
Ms. Harding's estranged husband and her bodyguard have confessed to the assault on Nancy Kerrigan. Anyone who could do what these thugs did to Ms. Kerrigan deserve to be feared. Obviously, Ms. Loos has never heard of due process. Ms. Harding is innocent until proved guilty. At this point, she hasn't even been indicted, although she's been tried and found guilty by the media.
As for ``it wasn't my fault'' as an excuse: Has Ms. Loos listened to Bill Clinton and Janet Reno with regards to the Branch Davidians fiasco? They both say, "it wasn't my fault; they (the Davidians) brought this on themselves." Since when is it a capital offense in this country to be suspected of owning illegal weapons?
If the president and attorney general can use this excuse, anyone in this country should be entitled to.
TERRY L. DOOLEY
MONETA
Handicapped were turned away
I'M APPALLED at the Roanoke Civic Center parking staff's action on Feb. 12, the night of the big sellout game of the Roanoke Express.
The parking lot filled up and all entrances were blocked, which is understandable. However, the lot still had many parking spaces for the handicapped available. Why was a person in a wheelchair, who had purchased a ticket well ahead of time and was assured wheelchair seating was available, turned away? He not only wasn't allowed to park, but his wife wasn't allowed to drop him off at the entrance.
In this age of understanding and of the Americans With Disabilities Act, I find this action reprehensible.
LYNN COLE
ROANOKE
by CNB