Letters to the Editor

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Apr 19, 2006

For-profits costly

Gregory Schneider's essay in favor of private, for-profit competition as the model for America's health care deserves a measured reply. Forty-nine percent of those with insurance are already covered by two single payor systems, Medicare and Medicaid

The administrative costs for Medicare are 1.9 percent and for Medicaid in Kansas are 4-6 percent. The administrative costs for commercial insurance are 12-14 percent.

The April 17 issue of Fortune Magazine ranks the top 500 companies in America by revenue. United Healthgroup in Minnesota and Wellpoint in Indianapolis are ranked 37th and 38th.

Wellpoint's 2005 profits increased 156.6% from 2004.

The annual growth in profits for the health care insurance and managed care industry from 2000-2005 was 35 percent a year.

There is little free-market competition in certain key areas of health care. Medicare Part D does not allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the drug companies even though the Veteran's Administration is allowed to do so. Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial insurers often tell doctors and hospitals what their reimbursement will be.

Overall, it may be that universal coverage under a single payor plan modeled after the best parts of Medicare Parts A and B, will offer the most benefit to the largest number of people.

IRA STAMM, Ph.D.

Topeka

Fences work

I most adamantly disagree with the Capital-Journal editorial "Unworkable."

You compare Mexicans to Prohibition. The American people wanted booze, they most certainly don't want Mexicans. Of course, the multinational corporations and their slaves want Mexicans.

"Our efforts to keep people from coming into the United States illegally haven't worked." How can you say that they haven't worked when there has never been an attempt to protect our border. The border patrol is as useless as a rubber chicken. The border patrol has problems with patrolling the border. Their swivel chairs get bogged down in the sand. They probably don't know where the border is anyway.

Your editorial says serious realistic reform is coming out of Washington. Ridiculous. Anything coming out of Washington will be plain and simple treason. It will be amnesty in one flavor or another, which just makes a bad situation much worse.

Now, where do you get the idea that Mexicans don't vote. They bring Mexicans across the border by the truck loads to vote in American elections.

San Ysidro, California built a fence. The fence was only 44 miles long, but they proved beyond any question that border can be controlled.

WARREN ALLEN,Topeka

Good citizens

We want to survive and have a good peaceful life, to give our children a better life than they had in Mexico. We raise our children to get educated and to work hard and to give back to America by being good citizens. We also strive to continue our religious beliefs.

My great-grandfather brought my father to America when there was war in Mexico. They traveled by cattle car, with my great- grandmother and my only aunt. Both men helped build Santa Fe and Union Pacific in the cold of Kansas, and in the heat of Kansas.

My father's sons fought in WWII, my brothers fought in Vietnam.

We didn't come in legally like the terrorists who were allowed in by the Untied States. Illegal aliens were working hard, while the terrorists were blowing up buildings on 9/11.

MARY BLANCAS,

Topeka

Park has history

I have been reading about what to name the new state park. Some want to name it Menninger because they did so much to put Topeka on the map.

I never see anything about Security Benefit Association. They built all those older brick buildings years before Menninger became prominent. Security Benefit also helped Topeka be recognized. It was one of the first insurance companies to offer hospital and health benefits. This brought people to Topeka from other states for affordable health care.

If you want to name it for the original owners, name it for the chief of the Indian tribe whose reservation it once was, probably before 1854.

There is an Indian on top of the Statehouse, he may be looking out across his reservation. There have been other prominent people, like Cyrus K. Holliday. The AT&SF has had a lot to do with Topeka history. There was Charles Curtis, a former vice president and a native American as well as a native Topekan. Pappan's Landing, a ferry crossing is just downstream from this proposed park area.

So whatever it is named give it a historical name.

DUANE FITCH,Burlington

Reserve isn't federal

Regarding the "Go back to basics" letter by John Davis: the so- called fraudulent Federal Reserve is anything but federal or American. This fraud came about because of a few of our elected servants in D.C. back in 1913 when most other members of Congress were out of town. In effect this was a dream come true by one-world bankers.

The Federal Reserve is not a part of the federal government but is just as corrupt and slippery.

What the Federal Reserve does is make money for a few pennies for each bill, then loan it to the government, which is us. We didn't ask to borrow it, but we will pay for it as will many generations to come.