Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 17, 1994 TAG: 9409290003
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Without interference from lobbyists, the crime bill would have passed on its own merits. Enter the National Rifle Association, and once again our voices go unheard.
Sort of gives new meaning to advise and consent. The lobbyists advise, and Congress consents.
LLOYD M. HOLFIELD ROANOKE
Mandates equal dictatorship
REGARDLESS of any reason given for mandating health-care insurance, this is only another government excuse to interfere with citizens' rights. We must remember that every small right we lose will add up sooner or later to all rights lost. If we continue to mandate (dictate) to the citizens of this great country, only government (dictatorship) will have any rights.
SHERRILL L. SMITH SALEM
\ Checkpoints breed disdain for the law
IN RESPONSE to Tim Poland's July 2 commentary (``Less cheer, more fear''), and letters to the editor by Louise Bloss (July 31, ``Roadblocks are justified''), Brenda Altman (Aug. 1, ``Is life worth a sobriety checkpoint?'') and Maxwell Dyett (Aug. 3, ``Road checks protect everyone''):
They seem to say that any intrusion on our liberty is justified in the cause of public safety. But as Benjamin Franklin noted, trading liberty for security is a losing bargain.
All the good that police do can't make up for the feeling of harassment that comes from having to prove one's innocence as a ``routine'' matter. I encounter many law-abiding people who seem to despise the police as much as they do the criminal element. They don't speak out publicly against the police for fear of becoming targets of police harassment.
I also see many honest people choosing to ignore laws they consider too restrictive, and looking on punishment as simple misfortune.
As ordinary people come to think of ``the law'' as uniformed persons who ought to be avoided, respect for real law is undermined. Serious crimes go unpunished because witnesses don't want to get involved. And how do children learn to respect legal authority when parents loathe the police and disregard the law?
It seems we're becoming a more lawless society. Could loss of liberty be the reason?
ANDREW AKERS SALEM
Congress adds to high health costs
AUGUSTUS JOHNSON'S July 31 letter to the editor (``Need health care as good as Congress''') was on the mark about the nonpaying, uninsured patient's costs being added to the paying or insured patient's bill. That's not all that's causing health costs to skyrocket.
Congress adds to those costs also. To provide money for new programs (never to cut the obscene deficit), federal lawmakers reduce Medicare's payments to health providers. Medicare now approves payment of 50 percent to 75 percent of the provider's charge, paying 80 percent of that approved amount, while the patient pays 20 percent.
Participating health providers agree to accept the approved amount. Nonparticipating providers may charge a maximum of 15 percent above the approved amount, and the patient pays the extra 15 percent on top of the 20 percent. To meet expenses and to make a decent income, all providers raise their charges to the paying patients.
This year, Congress plans to cut billions more from Medicare, passing on more costs to the paying patient.
The health-care bills Congress is considering would hold down drug costs, by cutting millions of dollars from drug companies' research programs for new drugs.
Is this the organization that you want controlling all the health care in this country? If so, will our top-rated health-care system soon be third-rate? I think so!
GEORGE F. SNYDER VINTON
Believe it or not, it's not science
PLEASE permit me to take issue with your Aug. 1 editorial entitled ``The Scopes trial, revisited'' wherein you claimed that evolution is a scientific theory that's ``thoroughly based on methods of scientific inquiry and confirmed by mountains of empirical data.''
Scientific theory must be observable, measurable and predictable. Evolution is a postulate because it isn't testable. No fossil evidence is available to validate the transitional life forms essential to proving an evolutionary origin for new species. Darwin's mechanism only explains the extinction process for existing species. The current evolution postulate depends on genetic mutation, but mutation weakens an organism.
Those who hold to evolutionary origins may believe what they will, but should understand that their belief isn't science, and they cannot hold evolution up as the only possible explanation for life.
Evolution is religious dogma with man as the sole arbiter of truth. The Christian faith is compatible with science, but doesn't depend on evidence that fallible men can misunderstand. Christian faith depends on God's revelation to man and God's sovereign authority as the omnipresent, all-knowing truth-teller.
HUGH W. MANESS ROANOKE
by CNB