Have you been sick or had surgery lately?
The costs are staggering. It is a giant shell game. We all would like to pass costs on to someone else. The choice is federal, state, county, town, the providers — or pay the whole cost ourselves. That last option is impossible for most of us. Our current system of a patchwork of insurances, deductions, denials and exceptions is not working ether. What has worked since the Johnson administration in 1965? Medicare. A single-payer system for the elderly.
I have dealt with Medicare as a doctor on the supplier side. I am also in my ninth decade. That means I am reaping the benefits as a patient. Medicare works.
Do not listen to the venal members of our government who insist on following our current system of insurances. The lobbying to keep this is intense — especially by insurance and drug companies. They all wish to manipulate the system. Our representatives depend on this money for campaign finance and therefore denounce a more logical single-payer system.
So calculate the costs we pay now: payment for uncovered services and deductibles; rising insurance premiums; the necessary profit margin insurers must pay stockholders; the cost of hundreds of lobbyists in the medical field donating for votes; the enormous administrative expense of managing such a patchwork system.
Several national organizations have worked this out. You and I currently pay around $12,000 per year. Why not, instead, pay that amount or less — in a tax for universal one-payer medical care, an expanded Medicare system. It has worked for the old, why not for everybody? It works in other nations.
Our new, impulsive leader may well go down in history ridiculed. He could just as easily end up famous and deservedly revered, a president who changed the system, “drained the swamp.” He could offer Medicare for all.
Ben Gilson
Hanover
Whose Sanity Should Be Questioned?
I do not write to defend Donald Trump. I disagree with several of the statements he has made over the past year, and I believe his recent order restricting visa entries was poorly executed. That said, I cannot help but comment on the opinion of Rosa Brooks (“Does It Have to Be Four More Years?” Feb. 1). Here we have a law professor and Georgetown dean who sincerely believes that the president is clinically insane. She frets about the possibility of him invading Mexico, and even launching nukes there or against China. She writes with apparent hope that an American military coup will overcome such orders if and when they come. I believe protections are already built into our nuclear launch protocols so that even the president cannot unilaterally order such attacks.
Brooks should stop watching fictional dramas on reality TV. If these fears are real for her and not mere hyperbole, it is her sanity that needs to be questioned, not Trump’s. A political pundit recently diagnosed the American public not as insane but as bipolar, collectively going through a manic-depressive stage of massive proportions. Perhaps he is right.
Tim Dreisbach
South Royalton
Understand Tourette Syndrome
Tourette Syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by sudden involuntary movements and/or sounds, which can range from mild to severe. Common symptoms include eye blinking, throat clearing, shoulder shrugging, tongue clicking o, in my case, sniffing.
While these symptoms can be distressing to the sufferer and at times irritating to others, they are generally not debilitating. Coprolalia, the involuntary utterance of socially unacceptable or inappropriate words or phrases, is an extreme and rare symptom of TS, occurring in only 10 percent of all cases. Unfortunately, this particular symptom is often best known to the public because it is too often sensationalized by the media, portrayed and mocked as a common symptom.
Anthony Roisman’s letter to the editor on Jan. 20 describes Donald Trump’s “frequent, outrageous and totally unacceptable tweets” as a “modern-day version of Tourette’s.” While I agree with Mr. Roisman’s premise that Donald Trump’s tweets are distracting and dangerous, I vehemently disagree with his characterization of these as a type of TS. Mr. Roisman’s disparagement of TS is no better than Mr. Trump’s derision of a disabled New York Times reporter during a campaign rally in 2015. I encourage everyone to stop and think before ridiculing any disability or disease.
To learn more about TS, please visit the Tourette Association of America website at tourette.org.
Corinne Fortune
Hanover
The Norwich Code
You have to admit it — the residents of Norwich are among the smartest people in the world. I stumbled upon their secret algorithm for success, which I would like to share with you, in code. In honor of John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, I present to you Norwich’s secret, enriching algorithm in pseudo-BASIC, an little-known variant of the original language:
10 build environmentally-suspect, residents-only recreation area
20 if world becomes uninhabitable, go to 99
30 consume conspicuously, producing vast quantities of greenhouse gases, warming planet
40 wait for climate change to unleash huge storm, destroying suspect infrastructure
50 request disaster relief
60 delay (years)
70 receive huge FEMA payment
80 spend payment on town infrastructure, lowering municipal tax burden
90 through reverse income sensitivity, allow most of relief payment to benefit the wealthiest, providing for even more consumption
95 go to 20
99 END
The town of Norwich, with a median family income of over $136,000, ranks as the wealthiest in Vermont. Now that its secret has been revealed, I offer an alternative. There must be a syntax error in it somewhere, because I can’t seem to make it run. If there is anyone out there familiar with pseudo-BASIC, please help me debug it:
70 identify local renewable energy companies such as Solaflect and Norwich Technologies
80 divide relief payment among the companies that agree to share data
90 direct all net renewable energy income from project to weatherization for lowest-income Vermonters, reducing consumption
100 share data on most economical energy production
110 publicize data so that others can learn best ways to reduce
120 thrive
130 go to 90 # no end needed, as leadership brings sustainability
Marc Chabot
Thetford Center
The Trump Cult
Recently I listened to the hour-long National Public Radio program On Point with Tom Ashbrook, which featured a three-person panel of Trump supporters from several states and a Reuters reporter who has followed the Trump campaign from the beginning (I wonder how many Trump voters would listen to even five minutes of alternative views or what right-wing radio station would air an hourlong program of Democrats’ views?)
I was very disturbed by the cult-follower mentality of the panelists and other Trump supporters calling in: complete unquestioning, uncritical belief in — faith in — Trump as infallible; that is, completely right in everything he says and does and incapable of wrong. They excuse away any contradictions to their beliefs — even blatant lies by Trump — and denounce any alternate viewpoints as completely biased even when presented with no evidence supporting such claims.
These people are incapable of reason, incapable of intellectual thinking. They are as deluded as all cult followers are: the followers of Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Osama bin Laden or the preachers of ISIS, for example.
I wonder what delusions the Trump cult followers will tell themselves when their preacher-con man’s presidency implodes with corruption and lies and he and his inner circle and family slink back to revoltingly lavish lairs.
Alice Morrison
Newbury, Vt.
One Nation Under God?
I can trace my ancestors on both sides of my family back to Fairfield, Conn., in the late 1600s, yet I am not a “true American” according to 32 percent of respondents in a recent poll. Why? Well, I’m not a Christian.
I do not have any religious beliefs and never have, despite attending Sunday school and church up to my sophomore year in high school. And for this a third of Americans consider me not truly an American?
I swear, sometimes I get so sick of hearing every politician say “God Bless America” (as if we’re so special in the eyes of their God) that I want to shoot myself. But wait. I can’t choose when I will die if Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch has his way, because he wants a federal law to prohibit dying with dignity.
Rebecca Leake
Norwich