Letters to the editor for Sunday, July 9, 2017

Health care should be accessible to all

When I was 9 years old, I was kicked by a horse. Emergency surgery was needed, I lost my spleen and half a kidney. I spent 30 days in the hospital, half of that time in an intensive-care unit. My mother told me the total bill was a little over $10,000. In 1964, that was a lot of money, but we seemed to manage and my health returned.

If that accident were to occur today, what would be the cost? My daughter spent four hours in an emergency room for food poisoning and the bill was $12,000.

No one should lose everything for an unfortunate accident or illness.

What kind of health bill would put seniors, women, the poor and people with preexisting conditions in a situation where either they forgo health coverage or they go into debt to pay their insurance premiums?

I believe that all people have the right to a system that will take care of them, not abuse them.

Yes, I have preexisting conditions. Hard to be 60 and not have any. I have lived a full life with bumps in the road. I am lucky to have insurance. I wish everyone could.

Sally Burrows

Reno

New stop sign location poorly planned

Carson City traffic just installed stop signs on our rural road at the Conti and Gentry intersection in south east Carson, off Edmonds Drive.

It is beyond me why this decision was made noting that there has never been an accident at this location in the 30 years I have lived here.

Secondly, if a stop sign was demanded by someone, why would they put it on the busiest street direction rather then on the Conti direction that has a tenth of the traffic? Making considerably more vehicles stop contributes to pollution, noise and safety as well as costing lots more in automobile wear and tear to the most people. Move the signs, if you must have them, to the least used north-south direction.

Perhaps a traffic study would have been appropriate and cost nothing rather than jumping to a possibly political whim.

Steve Knight

Carson City

The awesomeness of our existence

Jodie Gullickson’s recent commentary “Sierra Shows Truth of Life” got me thinking about the more fundamental illusions of our existence which are not created by us per se, but rather created and imposed on us by God, evolution, a combination of God and evolution, or something else (you choose).

Vision and colors do not exist in the universe. They are only different frequencies within a sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. Our brains convert these frequencies into what we perceive as vision and color.

Sound does not exist in the universe. It is just wave frequencies and amplitudes that our brain converts into what we perceive as sound. The sensations of feel, taste, and smell occur nowhere except in our brains and ultimately our minds.

As for time, we have no idea what it is. Einstein’s friend Kurt Gödel and others have made attempts at trying to determine what it is or whether it even exists. We do know that time is integral with space (spacetime), that it is not a constant (time dilation), and that it is considered the fourth dimension which we can comprehend only mathematically.

The mind, however, is even more of a mystery to me than time.

So everything we experience is an illusion of the mind. But what a grand illusion it is, to be enjoyed, appreciated, and cherished.

Randy Grossmann

Carson City

Traffic may clog on USA Parkway, Highway 50

The traffic circle at USA Parkway and Highway 50 will create traffic jams on Highway 50. The length and slow speed of the semis entering the circle from USA Parkway will block the east and west traffic on Highway 50.

This could be corrected by putting an intersection on USA Parkway north of Highway 50 for a road parallel to Highway 50 to US 95A, which would allow a seamless entry for the semis going south.

This will become worse as more companies move to the industrial park and Interstate 11 is built.

Walt Ratchford

Carson City

Obamacare a wreck thanks to big business

The hospital corporations and the large pharmaceutical corporations ponied up the dough to convince us the Affordable Care Act was a good idea and got it pushed through to law. The insurance corporations stood by, even though indications were they would be pressed to provide more coverage, because they knew if it fell out right they would profit as well.

The cost of healthcare has done nothing but rise since. The hospital corporations and pharmaceutical corporations are profiting like never before. The quality of care has become marginal at best, and now that the everyone-must-have-insurance mechanism of the ACA is fully functional, the insurance corporations are pushing for a 38 percent increase in premium and pulling out of the rural counties where people live and work.

Corporations have recently won their battle in court for personhood, but what kind of persons are they? Sociopathic, clearly.

Kelly Jones

Carson City