Medical care different from health care

Many in Congress and many citizens believe the health care bill requires a makeover. As a start, I suggest that the bill be renamed Medical Care for U.S.A.

I am willing to accept medical care as a right for any United States citizen. A broken limb, a heart attack, internal or external injury, etc. — all need attention by professionals.

However, ”health” care is an individual’s responsibility rather than a right. We control our health mainly by diet, exercise, abstinence from tobacco and limited alcoholic intake. Simple as that. How many times do we have to be told?

Gov. John Baldacci made this as a point in his State of the State address, but media follow-up was minimal.

With all the statistics around, perhaps the dietitians, economists and surveys could show how medical-health costs can be reduced in this country through personal care. Here’s to your good health!

Donald Bail

Freeport

 

Every citizen called to battle in World War II

 

I heard FDR say: ”As of December 7th, we are at war with the Empire of Japan.” He did not conclude with: ”Gays and lesbians need not apply.”

Arthur Whitey

Freeport

 

No relief in Roe v. Wade for females never born

 

This is a response to the Maine Voices column of Jan. 28 (”Right to abortion enshrined in Roe was great relief for women”).

”Roe” (Jane McCorvey) never had an abortion. The 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade is a time to remember what has been lost.

Since Jan. 22, 1973, 52 million American children lost their chance at life. The females included in that number would not likely have considered abortion a great relief.

The column’s author states that the goal was gender equality and an end to discrimination against women. What could be more anti-woman than forcing her to choose between sacrificing her education and career plans and sacrificing her unborn child? There is no logic to that argument.

Since the author lived in New York, which had legalized abortion in 1970, she would not have had to travel anywhere. As for risking her life: The same doctors who were performing abortions on Jan. 21 in their offices were the same doctors performing them on Jan. 23.

The author states she was asked if she was on ”the pill” and stated that she does not want any young woman to have that experience. While inappropriate, it hardly qualifies as a life-long trauma.

During my career as a Registered Nurse, I have seen countless deaths, traumas and violations to the human body. None of these prepared me to watch a video of the scraping of a new life from its mother’s womb.

Let us not continue to perpetuate the killing of innocents in an attempt to achieve so-called gender equality.

Maureen Williams, RN, BSN

Falmouth

 

Wind farm proponents are blowing hot air

 

I’m glad to see the reporter Tux Turkel is finally writing about this big wind turbine scam that is happening all over rural Maine.

Wake up, people! This is all being done with your taxpayer dollars and is eventually going to drive up electricity rates. These thieves are laughing all the way to the bank and being egged on by the corrupt politicians in Augusta.

Gov. John Baldacci says he wants to stay involved with energy after he leaves office. Don’t be surprised if he lands a cushy job with First Wind or Iberdrola.

I am an 80-year-old retiree. I live on Caribou Pond in the beautiful Lincoln Lakes area. Every day I look out across the pond to Rollins Mountain. When the lake isn’t frozen, I enjoy the calls of the loons. First Wind is going to wreck all this.

My view will be of 11 389-foot-high wind turbines, lit 24/7 with aviation lights. There goes my property value right down the rat hole! Who would ever want to buy my home with that kind of view? I better get a big tax reduction from the town of Lincoln after they let First Wind ruin the value of my property.

Whenever the wind comes out of the east, instead of the loons, all I will hear is the roar of wind turbine blades for hours on end plus the pulsing ”whump” sound. The same noises that are driving people in Mars Hill, Freedom and Vinalhaven crazy will echo across the water at all the folks along my shore of Caribou Pond.

So much for peace and quiet in my old age! It ought to be criminal to treat people this way. It’s sad to see the state we love being ruined for no good reason for all these wind turbines.

Donald Smith

Lincoln

 

Sen. Collins’ ‘concern’ absent when GOP ruled

 

I wish every independent voter who helped elect Sen. Susan Collins to her third term has the opportunity to read Greg Kesich’s column in the Feb. 10 edition of the Portland Press Herald (”Collins, Republicans find a new way to say ‘no’ to reform”).

Mr. Kesich’s commentary echoed and deepened the frustration I felt upon reading Sen. Collins’ defense of her ”ideas on controlling health care costs” in the Feb. 1 edition.

I simply cannot understand why the anxiety for the American people she expresses today never alarmed her in previous years.

She had every opportunity to urge her Republican colleagues to submit and pass legislation on long overdue health care reform while her party had the vote in Congress. Where was her concern for the American people during all those years?

Collins campaigned and won the support of independent voters by distancing herself from the dismal eight-year record of the Republican Bush/Cheney administration. She denied her unwavering support for these policies, portraying herself as representing only the interests of her constituency in Maine.

Yet here she is unashamedly following her party’s position to completely discard President Obama’s health care reform initiative and supporting Republican determination to see his administration fail whatever the cost to the nation.

If the Republicans succeed in obstructing passage of the present bill before Congress, I sincerely doubt the ”bipartisan” proposal Sen. Collins and her Republican Party now claim to advocate will ever see the light of day.

Phyllis Kamin

Cumberland

 

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