What do Amazon, JP Morgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway have in common? They’re tired of paying exorbitant healthcare costs for their employees and are looking to do something about it. They announced today that they plan to offer their employees their own healthcare plan that will be run as a non-profit, initially open only to those employed by those companies. They’ve grown tired of seeing donut holes in prescription medicine prices, 30 percent overhead on average for healthcare and myriad drugs advertised on TV and other media. Advertising prescription drugs only makes them more expensive and most of us can rely on our doctors to prescribe what we need without having to watch absorbent underwear commercials during dinner time and worse.
For me, this is an intro to single payer, only just for those working for these companies. Many in the House and Senate should hang their heads in shame for what they’ve delivered to the American people as a healthcare joke, and that would include our Representative who consistently votes for healthcare that should be a crime.
There are few details given about their proposal available so far. They basically want to save money for their companies and deliver a better healthcare product to their employees at a fair price. Just the floating of this proposal caused multiple healthcare providers in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries to lose market value on the day of announcement. What a shame.
Rob Brostoff
Cascade Locks
Do your part for Children’s Park
As a member of the community, you should be aware of how valuable the livability of a neighborhood is, how important amenities are to adding value to our lives. Last summer it was determined that the 25-year-old Children’s Park at Ninth and Eugene was falling apart, rotting at the core and needed to be replaced. The community (we) must raise $100,000 towards this replacement effort and I am calling out to you for help.
Please take some time to visit www.gofundme.com/childrenspark and give what you can. Your neighbors would appreciate it and it would also be greatly appreciated if you would reach out to the people that you know who enjoy Hood River and get them to do the same. This park adds value to the homes in Hood River and if it were to be condemned and fenced off, it would most certainly not look very good for any of us. We need to take pride in ownership. It is time to step up to the plate and do our part.
Greg Colt
Hood River
End abortions
I am very concerned and disappointed in our Senator Ron Wyden, who voted against the 20-week Abortion Ban.
On Jan. 29, the U.S. Senate voted against banning late term abortions on five-month-old babies, all of whom can feel pain. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would prohibit abortions on babies of 20 weeks (22 weeks gestation) and onward, based on the science of fetal pain. When operated on at this age, it is standard practice to give babies anesthesia.
At 20 weeks, an unborn baby is the size of a small cantaloupe. The mother can feel her baby kicking. These premature babies have growing nails on their fingers and toes. Hair has just begun to grow on their heads. They can detect light, hear sounds, swallow and experience taste. They can grasp their parent’s hands and survive and grow into healthy children.
However, it is legal to dismember them in violent, painful abortions.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2013 there were at least 5,770 late term abortions in the U.S. The U.S. is one of only seven countries in the world to allow abortions after five months of development. It is not just morally abhorrent, it defies national consensus.
Senator Wyden, how are you supporting the Declaration of Independence by your stand on the “preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”? These infants deserve the right to live! You do not represent me or fulfill the moral obligation to protect the lives of these babies. It is very troubling that anyone would be willing to have the blood of innocent babies on their hands. What has our world become! Protecting pain-capable babies is the common-sense, humane thing to do. We must end cruel late-term abortions.
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