Patient reunites with medics and more letters to the editors

Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor

Patient reunites with medics

Almost two months after a serious medical emergency, Robert Bean reunited with Hamilton County Emergency Medical Services Paramedic Myron Shroepfer and advanced EMT Scott Garrision to thank them for saving his life. Bean was hiking when he fell ill. Feeling the symptoms of a heart attack, he called 911. Emergency responders carried Bean a mile out of the woods so he could be taken quickly to a local hospital.

"I am very grateful to the men and women of EMS and law enforcement of Hamilton County," Bean said. "They deserve more recognition for their efforts."

After recovering from heart surgery, Bean was able to spend Christmas with his family.

EMS Director Ken Wilkerson said thanks from patients "is the reward our employees strive for each time they respond on another emergency call."

Move Flats on 58 somewhere else

To city commissioners, Mayor Berke and Mayor Coppinger: I was one of few at a meeting - others weren't notified - where we were asked our opinion of a low-income housing project, Flats on 58, that someone wants to build in our neighborhood.

Everyone at the meeting was opposed. This is a quiet neighborhood; we would like to keep it that way. A housing unit of 120 will swamp us with people not compatible with everyone, overload our schools, cause major traffic problems and increase already high crime.

The pitch for this housing project was to provide housing for VW and Gestamp employees. If that's the case, I think a project closer to where they are employed would be better. A big field across North Hickory Valley Road from the sheriff's office is ideal. Or how about Glass Street, with the housing project on one side and new businesses on the other.

I wish Harrison residents could vote on this issue and not have to trust a commissioner to vote for us; he has only one vote. Residents offer better representation.

Lois Kibble

Harrison

Prior illness payments unfair

Suppose I was in a car accident and didn't have automobile insurance. Should I be able to run out and buy insurance that would cover my accident? If my uncle dies, should I be able to buy life insurance and turn in a claim?

If I do not buy health insurance for the years I am healthy then come down with an expensive disease, should I be able to buy health insurance with my pre-existing disease?

Think. If I can get health insurance having my pre-existing disease, all of you will be paying for my expensive disease, not me. I stiffed all of you for years; now my luck has run out. Or maybe your luck has run out, if you still support Obamacare.

Gerald Whitely

Ringgold, Ga.

Why don't more eye socialism?

David Shribman's March 12 commentary anticipating the centennial of the Russian Revolution lamented that a third of 18- to 29-year-old Americans, who have no memory of the Soviet Union or the Cold War, are "congenial to socialism."

Communism's siren call of equality and socialism's guarantees must appeal to these younger Americans as they transition from a childhood, where others cared for them, to having to confront life's realities and make their own livings in our competitive, capitalistic "rat race."

With reports concerning the absurd wealth and power of "the 1 per cent," tax cuts for the wealthy, rising corporate profits, and billionaires in cabinet positions, it's little wonder young people would have such feelings.

Add to the rising disparities between "haves" and "have nots," the number who stand to lose health care and a Labor secretary opposed to a minimal living wage, it's a wonder more people over 29 don't call for radical socio-economic changes.

The Soviet Union, Mao's China, Castro's Cuba - none of these represent the ideals hoped for in communist/socialist principles. But surely our growing disparities are not the ideals envisioned by capitalist proponents either.

Grady S. Burgner

Ooltewah

GOP sham: Health 'marketplace'

While the Republicans destabilize the health insurance market and engineer the collapse of Obamacare, it is worth noting that their American Health Care Act does not restrict actual health care prices.

There is nothing in the self-proclaimed "market-oriented" Republican plan that requires providers to publish prices for services or to prevent them from outsourcing outside the patient's insurance network and passing on those undisclosed costs.

There is a reason our health care system remains the most expensive in the world and achieves such uneven outcomes. It goes beyond the legitimate business need to make a profit.

There is a reason why Congress consistently ignores the health care needs of most of those it represents.

There is a reason Congress never does anything to restrict provider costs and instead touts a "marketplace" that never has and will never deliver efficiency: Our leaders remain deeply in the pockets of those who can afford to bribe them with contributions.

Ordinary citizens are not even at the table. God help them if we figure that out.

David C. Redheffer

Ringgold, Ga.

Government's 'ethical' role

Air and water travel across state lines, so we have the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. People, also, travel across state lines. However, our health insurance system limits access to affordable health care when people travel out of state.

Recently, a teenage patient of mine suffered a life-threatening head injury. Her mother, who lives out of state, used funds intended to pay her mortgage on medical expenses; now she is forced to sell her home.

I think of this family when I read Congress proposes to replace the Affordable Care Act with laws that will allow insurance companies to sell policies across state lines. Essentially, families will have almost no health insurance. Needed services will be denied because they will be "out of network."

To improve health and control costs, we need to improve, not restrict, access to cost-effective primary care. However, the plan of capping federal support to states for Medicaid puts children, seniors and disabled Americans at risk.

The leaders in our government are supposed to represent "We the People," not insurance companies. They have an ethical responsibility to ensure all Americans have clean air, water and health care.

Amy Evans, M.D.

Sewanee, Tenn.

EPA was no help with glyphosate

Dr. Clif Cleaveland's March 14 commentary - "Research, monitoring and enforcement will suffer" at the EPA due to planned reductions in workforce - is not based in fact. His assumption that the EPA has been faithfully carrying out its mission to protect the environment is false.

If EPA was doing its job, then California would not have to "impose a cancer label on Roundup." Monsanto says Roundup poses no risk to people in spite of research to the contrary.

According to The New York Times, while farmers and children exposed to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide were dying from non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a high-level EPA official was colluding with Monsanto behind the scenes to hide the truth.

Our food and water supply are contaminated with glyphosate (Roundup). We need to restore integrity to government agencies that have been bought by corporation lobbyists.

So decreasing corrupt EPA employees will be a good thing. The remaining employees will then be able to focus on their role of protecting the citizens of this country from toxins generated by Monsanto and their ilk.

Donna Budnick

Winchester, Tenn.

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