Business letters, May 12

Published May 12, 2007 at midnight

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Writer gets it right about health care, government

How refreshing it was to see Brian T. Schwartz's article on health care government, "Policies cripple market" (Wall Street West, April 28), as opposed to the bureaucratic blather on the same page by Anne Warhover.

Schwartz's comments were right on: Government programs don't work. They do not solve the problems they were created to solve, they often make things worse for the people they are trying to help, they wind up creating new problems calling for yet another fruitless government solution, they are highly costly and wasteful, and they divert money and energy from positive and productive uses.

Does Warhover really think that our government made this country great? In a way, she is correct. They used to stay out of the way.

Terry W. Donze, Wheat Ridge

Free market won't cut my insurance premiums

Brian T. Schwartz ("Policies cripple market") sure is a funny guy for a medical industry lobbyist. He says "health care is so expensive because patients pay so little for it" and calls premiums too cheap. Yep, I laugh so hard I cry at the tens of thousands of dollars I've paid over the years to insurance companies for care my family rarely uses because the deductibles prohibit anything but the most necessary visits. And those cheap premiums must really be a joke to the tens of thousands of uninsured, who Schwartz suggests "delay purchasing insurance until after they get sick."

Free-market insurance companies have so proven how important our health is to them that they don't need anyone regulating them - ha-ha - into giving us "mandated benefits." And, slap my taxpaying knee, if we dump the health care of the indigent and elderly into the free market, why surely my "cheap" medical insurance premiums are going to get even cheaper!

Oh, my stars! Why don't Brian T. Schwartz and his private industry bottom-line feeders at the Blue Ribbon Commission perform their comedy routine where only a medical probe should go?

Micki Amick, Denver

Labor needs to project a positive message

If lying CEOs are a warm bubble bath cooing false forecasts, organized labor is a bunch of oversized football players throwing ice-cold Gatorade on everyone else. Whom would you choose?

Organized labor needs to retune their message. What are they going to do for the middle class? All I hear are threats. Also, what are their standards? I know, I know - livable wages, etc. How about slackards protected by unions? How about a positive message that says "can do"? The American public is right where you want them, but you're blowing your opportunity with threats and conducting "business as usual" with no positive models of company/organized labor success. You will not succeed until you become more sophisticated and positive in your messages.

Tim Seaman, Arvada

Judge, jury, system did not serve Nacchio

The verdict in the Joe Nacchio trial is a travesty of justice.

The government grossly overcharges and threatens to imprison Qwest employees unless they put their spin on events for the prosecution. The judge disrespects defense counsel in the presence of the jury. The jury refuses to follow the "reasonable doubt" standard of criminal law.

The stock market deflates because of economic factors and terrorist attacks, people lose money and look for a convenient scapegoat. They conclude that because some people lost money on Qwest stock, and Nacchio made money, his gain must have caused their loss.

It is just as wrong to convict a man because he is rich as it is to convict a man because he is poor. That's what the law did to the Nacchio family.

William F. Chinnock, Boulder

Elevated rail needed on I-70 corridor

Regarding the April 26 story by Jeff Smith, "Congested I-70 costs state millions, study finds":

I am a Colorado native of 72 years and I have driven the road thousands of times. I was an insurance agent with offices from Georgetown to Vail and had thousands of clients on that road.

The only viable alternative is one that will work regardless of weather. That rules out a bigger road. Elevated rail of some sort is the only choice. It is time to get to that conclusion and start the design process.

Unlike roads, you cannot build a piece at a time. The whole project has to be completed to the transportation connection in Summit County. Stage two is to build it over Vail Pass. This road has cost billons over the last 20 years, but it is primarily when the weather snarls the traffic; the only logical choice is planning that solves that problem. And the only choice is a rail system that is suspended or elevated so moving snow is not a problem.

John D. Farr, Summit County

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