LETTERS

Difficult to recruit doctors

Evie Blad had a well-written piece in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on the critical doctor shortage in some areas of the state. The gist of it was that, as policy leaders work to make over health care, there may not be enough primary-care physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants for the system to actually work.

I suspect, as someone who is actually in practice in a medically under served area, that the policy leaders have underestimated the shortage by not accounting for the aging of physicians in rural areas. Perhaps too, they are basing some assumptions on incentives and lifestyle for physicians that used to exist, and I believe they are overly optimistic about numbers of practitioners available to fill the gap. Filling the gap requires actually putting people in practices or clinics, and those situations do not arise out of thin air.

The three physicians/officials mentioned in the article are all excellent people and have the interests of Arkansas at heart. I just wish they had more of a practical understanding of overhead and how difficult it is to recruit and retain medical talent in a small town.

Everyone agrees that health care should be affordable and all should be covered by insurance. However, does that require local health-care delivery systems to be overburdened by complex regulations and reimbursement formulas? Medical practitioners do not plunk down out of thin air into a community that needs them. They enter by way of a local doctor’s office, rural health clinic, hospital, etc.

CHARLES VERMONT

Prescott

Why not make it even

I am an avid reader of this newspaper, along with the New York Times and more than my share of news and information magazines. I believe there is one very important issue that has not been addressed in any of these materials.

That issue: removing all contraceptives readily available for the male. Remove this item from the shelves of all drugstore, grocery, service-station shelves and any other source where they are dispensed. Require a doctor’s visit for a prescription that must be obtained to purchase this item. This visit should include a good reason for getting a contraceptive, the responsibility and the legal issues involved with their use, and information that, if not used, it can lead to unwanted children to support, and sexually transmitted diseases.

If this Legislature insists on underfunding the Planned Parenthood clinics, then it is only fair that males share in their responsibility. We will then see who insists on low-cost contraceptives and just who will raise the most hell.

This Legislature wants Planned Parenthood clinics funded only for the fight against HIV and sexually transmitted diseases? Who do you think transmits these diseases? How much do you think it costs for a woman to see an OB/GYN for her contraceptive needs? It is substantially more than a male’s condom.

MARY D. CAIN

Little Rock

Couldn’t be bothered

Hats off to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial page for publishing the list of the 26 spineless legislators who couldn’t bother to vote on Senate Bill 587, which would have moved school-board elections to November, the same day as the elections for other public officials.

If you say nothing, you enable something to happen. Most of the tax money collected from every citizen of Arkansas goes toward their local schools. These enablers let the teachers unions and other special interests dictate policy by failing to vote, thus encouraging a smaller turnout in the special elections for school priorities.

The next time these spineless 26 legislators come up for re-election, hopefully the people of Arkansas will show them the door for their inability to take a stand for their constituents.

FREDDIE LOU QUIST

Heber Springs

The right thing to do

I am 12 years old and in the seventh grade. I see a trend in Americans today. We do not care about the future. We only care about the here and now, even though our actions might have a major impact on the future.

Pollution is a major thing in America right now, as many may know, but does anybody think about what the next generation will have to put up with if we continue on our current path? It will be very bad.

The key thing I see is our wasteful habits. I believe we need to recycle more. When I recycle, I feel I am just doing my part because it is my generation’s future that will suffer the environmental consequences if I don’t. I think people who don’t recycle either are lazy, dumb or they just don’t care. It’s easy to recycle. Plus, it’s the right thing to do.

If you think you don’t make a difference, think of it this way: Several pennies can add up to a dollar. Think of yourself as a penny, a small fraction of a big difference. Do your part. Recycle; it’s the right thing to do.

ZACHARY HUGHES

Little Rock

Must protect children

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. Every 18.5 seconds in America, someone has a cognitive challenge/brain injury. When parents don’t buy helmets for their child when buying bikes, skates, skateboards, skis, etc., isn’t this parental neglect or intentional child abuse?

Many families in Arkansas don’t have millions of dollars for rehabilitation that can last a lifetime; mine didn’t. Let’s save our future by making it mandatory for each child to wear a helmet while on a bike, etc. My expense to date has been over $3 million, and who knows how much it will cost you in the future?

Cognitive challenges or traumatic brain injuries are said to be the No. 1 cause of disability among youth, so the problem isn’t new. It has not been addressed or denied. Call your senators and representatives, because they’ve not listened to me in 30 years.

SHAUN BEST

Smackover

World isn’t that pretty

Maybe some women would have second thoughts about getting pregnant if they had to be financially responsible for it all. Actually, I believe there are some women having babies just to get welfare benefits, which they take and exchange for drugs while their neglected kids learn criminalistic ways to survive.

There may be some Martin Luther Kings or Mother Teresas among those 1 million and some fetuses aborted yearly in America. But also among that bunch may be some who will grow up to shoot a baby in a stroller or a whole classroom of first-graders.

I may sound cold, but I choose reality instead of letting a preacher tell me the world operates just like some pretty Hallmark movie. In reality, proof is evident that people won’t adopt just any child. I remember a few years back, a beautiful 2-year old little Kosovo girl with blond curls and blue eyes was displayed all over the news media as an orphan from the Kosovo conflict. Millions of people from all over the world requested to adopt

that little girl. But nobody would take the numerous orphans that didn’t look like the Kosovo girl. Abortions are illegal in Brazil, and its biggest cities have millions of abandoned kids living underground in sewers, unwanted kids who have to do things just to survive that are so disturbing to even think about.

To me, it is one cold God who would create kids and expect them to live like this.

GARY McLEHANEY

Benton

Responsibility is key

Don’t you hate it when you want to do something your budget does not allow? Fiduciary responsibility on most levels does not allow the spending of too much more than your income, but sometimes it’s hard to think of where that line was.

I’m not an economist, but as a general rule of thumb, when you have trouble making the interest payments and none of the principle, you probably should have thought about it before then. You can play with words like deficit and debt, but the latter is what you owe and the former is what you can’t pay, though the terms are not mutually exclusive. You might not be able to pay either, much less the interest. Please bear in mind that I have never been smart enough to borrow or spend my way out of debt, much less a deficit.

Fiduciary responsibility is the operative phrase, for private households and people with financial control over other people’s money have an obligation to use their resources in a fiscally sound and responsible manner. If they fail in this trust, they are subject to prosecution and jail.

Why should our own government be held to a lesser standard than the people it supposedly serves? Does the government have a fiat that protects it from imposing debts upon the current and future population?

In times of fiscal distress, most folks are concerned about spending and not about race, political parties or demagoguery. Lest we forget, all political parties and all Americans are just that-Americans.

PHILLIP A. RAMBIN

Bigelow

Tale of risks, rewards

I have followed the debate over Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and was pleased with the apparent compromise offered by the state-that is, utilize the dollars available for Medicaid expansion to purchase private insurance through the health-insurance exchange.

That is, until I read the actual bill, which says the state “shall utilize a private insurance option for ‘low risk’ adults.” It’s stated later that Medicaid will cover those deemed to be “medically frail or other individuals with exceptional needs for whom coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace is determined to be impractical . . .”

While I understand the need to entice young, uninsured people into the insurance pool, I do not see the need to enable a private industry to cherry-pick the market on the taxpayers’ dime. Under this plan, our tax dollars go to private insurance companies on a low risk/high reward basis; and to traditional Medicaid on a high risk/low reward basis. How is that competitive?

I never cease to be amazed that the party who vilifies the poor and the most vulnerable among us as “takers” apparently has no problem at all with providing corporate welfare whenever they are able to do so.

MARGE COLLIN

Hot Springs Village

Another side to surge

Paul Greenberg needs to see the documentary Baker Boys: Inside the Surge. It shows American officers paying off the insurgents to not shoot them; and then we left, and Iraq is a mess.

JEFF MADISON

Springdale

Feedback

Forgo partisanship

The bombing in Boston was most likely an act of terrorism.

I see the flags of every nation flying at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, a very public event that has participants from many countries of the world. I believe it was a reminder from al-Qaida that it has not forgotten the war that it wages upon the United States daily.

It is up to our leaders to put their partisan ways aside and truly do what is best for the American people. Bring our troops home from combat zones, and let’s worry about making our own borders and homeland safe.

If we are all truly Americans like President Barack Obama says, then shouldn’t our elected officials lead by example?

MICHAEL CRISWELL

North Little Rock

Birds of a feather?

Aren’t the people who want background checks and registration before you can buy or sell guns or ammunition the same people that claim it would infringe on voters’ rights and be a hardship to get an ID card to vote?

JACK S. KEETH

Bella Vista