Printed letters, Oct. 12, 2011

By Staff
Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The popular opinion is that CEOs, sports figures, entertainment figures and various Wall Street money movers receive obscene amounts of money for their small efforts. It’s probably true, but it amounts to a small amount of our country’s total commerce. It’s our fault for permitting those salaries to happen.

The United States was a vibrant land of opportunity, the envy of the world when we made what we used. Today, who makes our furniture, can openers, shirts, socks, shoes, bed sheets and all the other items we need every day? China. Whose economy is booming? China. Who is out of work? Americans.

Instead of creating a business environment that stimulates manufacturing, our government suppresses bankers, builders and entrepreneurs in the name of such things as the environment and fair play, then compensates by offering tax credits. What good is a tax credit if you are not making a taxable profit?

Let’s cut down on the “class warfare” talk. We don’t need more expensive government. Lets create a friendly environment for business to put people to work. Send a message to Washington.

BARRY LINDSTROM

Montrose

Blame insurance firms for higher premiums

In response to Michael Lowenstein’s Oct. 5 letter claiming “Obamacare” is raising his insurance premiums, I want to point out some pertinent facts that refute his claim. Provisions currently in effect include the following:

✔ People with pre-existing conditions may join high-risk pools until 2014.

✔ Insurers are prohibited from setting lifetime limits on insurance.

✔ 85 percent of large group and 80 percent of small group premiums must be spent on health care.

By Jan. 1, 2014, the law sets a maximum of $2,000 annual deductible for singles and $4,000 deductible for families. It also sets premium caps the insurers can charge based on income of the clients and sets a maximum out-of-pocket premiums. By 2018, the law makes all existing health insurance plans cover preventive care and checkups without a co-payment.

As people should recall, Congress would not allow a public option insurance plan that was to keep premiums low on basic insurance, as it would be a non-profit company. The insurance companies and many of our politicians, who are more interested in supporting those companies rather than the American people, spent millions of dollars and much time on making sure that didn’t happen.

So I would suggest the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not responsible for Lowenstein’s insurance company raising his rates at this time. I think they are getting primed up to keep their profits ahead of more regulations. Perhaps he should vent his anger on the company and his congressional representatives who did not protect him from this.

JUDY MILLER

Grand Junction

‘Climate change’ is latest in string of global scares

An online, environmental-footprint survey informed my granddaughter that if everyone lived as she did, we would need 4.5 Earths to sustain us. Such sites tend to scare young, impressionable students into believing the world will soon implode. These scare tactics have been used for decades.

Fifty-five years ago, “they” said that global cooling was imminent. People would starve because crops would freeze and people would freeze because we only had 25 years worth of oil and 50 of coal.

Forty years ago we learned that worldwide starvation was imminent because of our unsustainable agricultural processes, and we would run out of air because our forests were being decimated. Next was the ozone-hole scare, which was replaced by global- warming fears

Because the Earth didn’t warm enough, “global warming” became “climate change.” Guess what? Warming, cooling, changing climates and catastrophic weather are all natural. They’ve happened throughout Earth’s history. We still have plenty of oil and coal, and the ozone hole, now forgotten, is still there.

The environmental education that our children receive is often designed by non-profit organizations and, while that status sounds impartial, non-profit CEOs are often paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. They have a vested interest in promoting catastrophe.

Frequent-flyer Al Gore, proponent of global warming and offsetting carbon footprints, uses more transportation fuel and thereby causes more carbon dioxide emissions in a day than many of us do in months. Just one of his homes uses more energy in a month than mine uses in a year.

When Gore reduces his energy usage to my level, then I’ll listen. Until then, I’ll continue to consider these scares to be money-making hoaxes that have conned many well-intentioned people.

ANGIE MANY

Eckert