Letters to the Editor

Address health care

On Tuesday night, President Bush, during his State of the Union speech, only briefly discussed one of the most serious domestic issues, America's health care crisis.

There are more than 45 million uninsured Americans with more than one million more losing their coverage every year.

Many more than that, they lose hope.

With poverty on the rise, and health insurance on the decline, the president's brief mention and vision of health care ingnores the real needs of people without coverage and the rest of us who are paying more and more for it.

Health care should be a right for all Americans, not a privilege.

While health care cost rise, the president continues to propose cuts to key health programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

The only policy mentioned by the president, Health Savings Accounts, another idea borrowed from insurance companies, only reduces costs for those healthy and wealthy and does not address the issues of access, quality or coverage.

We taxpayers, who provide the president his health care, believe he owes the American people a solution, one that provides all Americans accessable, affordable and quality health care today.

Ed Thomson

419 Fountain Ct.

A real president

I listened to George Bush's State of the Union speech with hopes that five years of experience had endowed him with qualities befitting a president. I was disappointed.

He still leads a right-wing faction, not a nation.

A "uniter, not a divider" would respect his critics by representing their views honestly, not ridicule them as "isolationists" or "defeatists."

A leader who valued our lives and prosperity would confront global warming, along with the rampant destruction of oceans and other natural systems.

A leader who valued education would learn to pronounce "nuclear."

One who wanted energy security would support long-overdue mileage standards, instead of a 19-year partial reduction of Middle East oil imports.

A real president would abide by the laws and the Constitution he swore to uphold (we're talking retroactive search warrant here!) instead of claiming unrestrained powers.

It's 1,083 days until the next inauguration.

I hope then -- if not by miracle sooner -- we have a real president.

Laughing Water

808 N. Park Ave.