Single-payer health system needed now
It appears Paul Ryan was just teasing when he said “Obamacare is the law of the land” and it was time to move on.
The proposed GOP plan is a horrible substitute, no matter how many patches are added. ACA repeal would cause 526,000 Tennesseans to lose coverage and a loss of $16 billion in Medicaid funding. The ACA doesn’t solve all our health care woes, but repealing it destroys the few positive steps we’ve taken. More change is needed. Allowing a profit-driven market to control our most vital human service is suicidal.
The largest problem is staring us in the face. The media is flooded with outrageously expensive pharmaceutical ads. My recent TIME magazine was packed with full-page drug ads. One three-page ad costs more than $1 million. Prescription prices are skyrocketing while millions go uninsured.
I cringe to hear insurance carriers blame the ACA for leaving the marketplace when their CEO salaries average seven digits. How much worse must things get before we establish a single-payer system? Or at a minimum, put regulations on prescription prices? Health care must be a basic human right for everyone.
Jenny Rogers
Benton, Tenn.
Inauthentic culture where we are today
Jean Paul Sartre once defined existentialism by saying, “Existence precedes essence.” In other words, something happens; then people decide what it means. This philosophy opposed the Christian faith where essence precedes existence, meaning God spoke meaning into the world; then people live it out. But at least Sartre conceived in his word “angst” (anxiety plus stress) that people face real consequences for their decisions.
Democrats during the Supreme Court nomination hearings of Neil Gorsuch showed in their concept of the “living constitution” that they have no such empirical bottom to their philosophy. They believe judges are free to redefine words for the times. But words are the bricks of the law. Deconstructing their meanings turns them to sand.
Such exigency turns principles fluid. Republicans, who refused last year to accept Merrick Garland’s nomination, hypocritically disdain Democrats, who refused this year to approve Gorsuch’s nomination.
And the passionate heat of political fires melts the bridge of agreement over which we drive our lives every day. We can no longer discriminate between male and female, marriage and sacrilege, murder and health care, justice and prejudice.
Sartre would pronounce our culture “inauthentic.” Imagine what God will say.
Dr. Brian Hale
Red Bank
Bill’s defeat won’t deter supporters
I was extremely sad to hear that despite the support of Gov. Bill Haslam and college leaders, the Tuition Opportunity bill to grant in-state tuition to undocumented students in Tennessee failed by one vote in the House Education Committee this week.
Students who are directly affected by the failure of our state government to act on their behalf are Dreamers, these kids who were brought here in their early years and have spent the majority of their lives here.These are the kids who see themselves as Tennesseans and call this state home. They want to contribute to our state and to our society.
The message of the vote is clear: our legislators forced students to put their dreams on hold yet another year. The vote was disappointing in the fact that it communicated to our community a lack of vision for what we can contribute.
I am grateful to Sen. Todd Gardenhire and Rep. Mark White for championing the bill so important for our statewide immigrant community.
We look forward to coming back into action next year with statewide partners, community leaders and advocates to expand access to higher education for Dreamers.
Gladys Pineda-Loher