Congratulations to columnist David Lazarus for his Feb. 12 article, “An Obamacare Replacement? Here It Is,” and especially to Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich, for his bill HR 676 to establish a single-payer Medicare-for-all health program.
Medicare actually works, with predictable costs, payouts, low overhead and access to almost all health care providers. It is popular, though perhaps it can also be improved.
If the same subsidies were available through a single-payer Medicare-like system as are now paid to private profit-making insurance companies that put shareholders ahead of patients, it could be more affordable and more accessible for most people than the multiple-choice guessing game that we must now all play with private insurance companies. Those companies could still compete for supplemental policies.
John Conyers is a wise man. I knew him personally as a supporter of international family planning programs to help women and children protect their own health — and to avoid unplanned pregnancies producing rapid population growth in many developing countries.
So where do our own elected New Hampshire senators and representatives stand? Why are they not leading the effort to promote a single-payer Medicare-like plan as Rep. Conyers proposes? Why are they silent on a health care issue that could affect every family in this state? Even though it may not be possible to achieve this goal with the present Congress or president, it is important to begin to make the case publicly.
As former Secretary of State Dean Rusk once pointed out, “Ninety percent of the heath care in the world is provided by women.” This is one field where the voices of women should be heard, speaking out for a viable family health care program.
Yet so far my letters to each of our four elected women members of Congress on this subject sent a month ago have not been answered. Where are New Hampshire women leaders today in the crucial field of health care?
Phyllis Tilson Piotrow
New London
Foxes and the Henhouse
Foxes are now in charge of the henhouse and their teeth are showing. These foxes are eyeing for dinner the news media, ACA, climate change regulations, voting rights, women’s rights, public education, gender rights, Social Security, worker rights and more.
Foxes talk about jobs being the ultimate question. Jobs are without a doubt important. But there is something even more important, and that is “equality of power” within our democracy. It is how we make decisions to divvy up the surpluses of our economic system.
Oxfam just reported that eight of the world’s richest men hold as much wealth as half of the world. A number of them are Americans. When a democratic political system and capitalistic economic system are controlled by a powerful few, the few tend to destroy (examples: invasion of Iraq, the Great Recession, Citizens United, defunding education, cutting health care, influencing elections, etc.) the very systems that support and allow them a safe and productive place to make their efforts successful.
Why do they do this? Because they can, they want more. It’s that simple. Power is an aphrodisiac for the ego. You know that “smallish” part of us that wants everything our own way and more so we don’t feel “less than,” fearful or angry. The gross accumulation of power can be the worst drug or addiction there is and should be considered a psychological condition, the root of which is being pathologically insecure, greedy, selfish and elitist.
Let us not mimic the perpetrators. Let us make this life, this country, this planet more secure for everyone by creating a more sane way of living together.
Let’s make a strong, nonviolent, conscientious movement. For a more balanced equitable democratic society. What any good country should be about: looking after the common good for all.
Keith Barkett
Canaan
Russia, Taxes and Trump
It is good news that Michael Flynn has stepped down as National Security Adviser, given the seriousness of his actions. However, President Trump himself and many of his other closest advisers and family members still raise ethical questions. These questions will continue until there is transparency.
Most importantly, many questions remain about Trump’s true relations with Russia. It is not only the media who are interested in Trump’s tax returns. As of Feb. 10, the petition on the White House website calling for releasing the returns had 591,980 signatures. On Feb. 14, the figure was up to 774,018. If you have not already done so, add your names to the petition. It is breaking records for the number of signatures for such a petition.
There are other options as well, but some seem to be stalled. Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey requested on Feb. 1 that the House Ways and Means Committee request Trump’s tax returns. The Republican-dominated committee, headed by Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, rejected that request. The Joint Committee on Taxation also declines to make use of the power granted to Congress to examine presidential tax records (see column by George Yu published in the Valley News Feb. 9).
House Ways and Means members can be found at waysandmeans.house.gov/subcommittee/full-committee. Senate members of the Joint Committee on Taxation include Chair Orrin Hatch, Utah, Chuck Grassley, Iowa, Mike Crapo, Idaho, Ron Wyden, Ore., and Debbie Stabenow, Mich. If you know anyone who is a constituent of these lawmakers, have them contact their legislators and urge them to require release of Trump’s tax returns.
Sen. Patrick Leahy is a co-sponsor of a bill that will require all future presidential candidates to release tax information (S. 26, Presidential Tax Transparency Act). Write or call him to support this commonsense measure that will codify what has been long-standing practice so in the future we do not confront this problem again. We should also demand that there should be no legislation passed to reform the U.S. tax code until we see Trump’s tax returns.
Thelma Thompson
Post Mills
When Soldiers Called a Truce
After reading the fascinating article in the Sunday Valley News regarding a World War I documentary (“American’s WWI Documentary Uncovered,” Feb. 12) and the positive nature of the German soldiers, I was reminded of one of my favorite songs, relating to the early days of the war when Germany and England were fighting in France before the U.S. got involved. On Christmas eve they stopped fighting, became friends, sang Christmas songs together, traded drinks and realized how close they really were. Then in the morning they had to go back to war!
Christmas in the Trenches is a wonderful ballad from John McCutcheon’s 1984 album Winter Solstice.
By typing the title of the song on a web browser you can access McCutcheon singing the song and also locate the printed lyrics.
It tells the story of the 1914 Christmas Eve truce from the perspective of a fictional British soldier. McCutcheon stated that although Francis Tolliver is a fictional character, the event depicted is true. McCutcheon met some of the German soldiers involved in this Christmas story when he toured in Denmark.
I am quoting the last four lines of the song.
It’s Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung. The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung.
The walls they kept between us to exact the work of war, have been crumbled, and are gone for evermore.
O my name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell. Each Christmas comes since World War One, I learned its lessons well.
But the ones to call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame, and on each end of the rifle, we’re the same.
That line leads to the conclusion that military decisions are the result of leaders who instead of talking with their supposed enemies feel they must fight to prove their worth.
Would it not be better to be talking actively with all our potential enemies?
Clark Griffiths
Lebanon