All U.S. priorities ‘economically entwined’

The Times’ editorial titled “Congress must reject health-reform bill” [Opinion, March 16] lacks both coherence and compassion. Jobs are a high priority but so is the war, financial-system reform, environment and health care. We can’t afford to focus on only one of our problems as they are all economically entwined. Some economists, for example, believe a health-care bill will encourage hiring.

The editorial charges the health-care bill will increase health-care spending but expenditures are rising astronomically without a bill. Some now face a 39 percent rise in health-insurance premiums. Private insurance is covering fewer people for more money. The independent Congressional Budget Office states the current bill actually saves money. Editorial fairness would demand a more balanced look at health-care future costs.

I do applaud the acknowledgment of a need for expanded coverage, but an opinion to ignore this benefit and start over is naive and cruel. Starting over means thousands more unnecessary deaths and bankruptcies due to lack of health-care coverage.

— Peter Capell, Seattle

Dealing with current health care as painful as losing kidney

This is the second time The Seattle Times has stated its opposition to the health-reform bill. The first time I was shocked, but now I am just plain sad.

I am a Harvard alumna who recently lost her job as a nursing assistant taking care of the sick and elderly. When I was working, my employer didn’t offer his many employees insurance — it was too expensive!

I can’t afford health insurance on the private market. I don’t have kids and am not pregnant, so I am not eligible for Medicaid. My paychecks go for my rent, food and student-loan payments.

Last year I had a bicycling accident and almost lost my kidney. I didn’t know if a hospital would treat me; they did — though begrudgingly. The fear and shame was as painful as the kidney laceration. The Seattle Times is the public voice of a proud progressive city like Seattle, so how can it support the status quo for health care that is cruel and shameful in its inequality?

— Sirpa H. Nelson, Seattle

Bill would limit access to barbiturates

I take great exception to the op-ed about combating prescription abuse that says it will harm patients in pain [“Bill to combat prescription abuse little benefit to patients in pain,” Opinion, March 17]. It is clear the writers neither understand the problem this bill addresses or the bill itself.

The problem is the over-prescription of barbiturates and other addictive drugs. The bill seeks to educate prescribers to the alternatives to mass over-prescribing — circumstances currently far too common. The bill impinges on treatment of chronic pain in no manner.

There are far too many examples of patients who are not in chronic pain receiving prescriptions for literally hundreds of tablets of OxyContin and hydrocodone for toothaches, pulled muscles, twisted knees and other short-term situations. My daughter was recently offered 30 Vicodin when she had her wisdom teeth pulled and was told there was no “merit badge” for having pills left over.

Gov. Chris Gregoire should sign this bill because many doctors are not educated on the consequences and side effects of barbiturates and do absolutely no follow up on the use of the pills.

— Rose Dennis, Bellevue