Grateful for insurance
While sitting in my wheelchair after an extended medical condition and hoping to walk again soon, I am grateful for good health insurance coverage which has allowed me to access great medical help through Mercy Health.
My previous insurance premiums became so expensive and the deductible so high that I could no longer afford coverage and the medications that were not covered by insurance.
Once I had lost my insurance and did not have a primary-care physician, I was unable to treat my diabetes and all other medical problems. I found myself using drop-in clinics and several trips to the emergency room, which I am still paying for two years later.
After being uninsured for two years, I now have coverage through the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare). I am now on the Gold Plan of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield. My coverage with them is much better now than when I was insured with them in the past. I have subsidized premiums, not free. I pay about the same amount each month that I paid for the first 20 years of my career.
I do not want free care, just affordable care and not the $10,000 deductible that my former insurance offered me to make it affordable.
I am not taking political sides. I am just grateful for good health insurance, grateful my life was saved, and grateful for a great team of physicians.
DAVID ARLON COKER
Rogers
Why, that's brilliant!
I couldn't help but notice that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, in trying to help Republican candidates get elected, told Republican voters to lie to Democrats about the date of the election, and to vandalize their cars to keep them from the polls because they're "dangerous."
Do you think Huckabee knows that Republicans can't win any other way?
While I don't condone his suggestions, I hope Arkansas voters prove him right in November!
LISA MILLIGAN
Fayetteville
The point of change
Does Joseph Lombardi of Greenbrier not see the irony in trying to slam Bradley Gitz for discussing the "dimmer" folks of the state for falling for a string of Democratic politicians with "exceptional political skills and broad appeal?" Mr. Lombardi then goes on to say that those Democrats including "Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, Bill Clinton (why not add Mike Beebe)" just might have been elected "because they were highly intelligent people who sincerely cared about all the citizens of a state where poverty rates were high and education standards low."
What part of all of these fine Democrats leading these poverty-stricken, low-educated folks does he not get? Have they helped the rate of poverty or the low education rates? That is the whole point of electing a different set of people. We do not want to continue to be at the top of the list of the states in poverty and at the bottom of the leaderboard in education.
SERENA GARNER
Morrilton
Professor gets an F
Bradley Gitz's column about election definitions was the worst piece of work I have ever read on the opinion pages of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It was insulting to any intelligent reader, no matter what party their affiliation is.
Mr. Gitz has a Ph.D. and comes off in this column as uneducated. I think it is unfortunate that he has influence over young minds at Lyon College. A Google search shows that Mr. Gitz writes a weekly column for the Arkansas Democrat- Gazette. My question is, why?
Find a writer who has something factual, uplifting and enlightening to say. After months of negative TV ads, Arkansans need it.
NANCY BUMGARDNER
Bella Vista
Votes are not for sale
People of all political persuasions have consistently complained about the Washington politicians being too much influenced by lobbyists with a cause. It is a legitimate criticism.
Well, Arkansans, we are being subjected to like pressures. Outsiders are spending many millions of dollars in an effort to influence us to vote in a manner they choose. Are we going to respond by letting the best ads win? The biggest lies win?
Would it not be better to evaluate the voting records of the candidates? To evaluate their past performances?
Show the Washington politicians that we Arkansans are not unduly influenced by the biggest money. We cannot be bought. This is not an auction.
Let's vote our consciences in an intelligent, not emotional manner.
L.J. MICKEY JORDAN JR.
Hot Springs Village
Most dangerous game
After watching the U.S. senatorial four-candidate debate on AETN which, in its essence, was a personal recitation of all of the campaign ads over the airwaves, I decided that, with the following night's two-candidate debate between Tom Cotton and Mark Pryor, it was worthy of a look for a heartfelt, soul-bearing examination absent of pat answers with all of the talking points regurgitated from the night before.
I also decided to make a drinking game out of it. When the words "billionaire" or "Obama" were uttered, I took a shot. In 15 minutes I was buzzed, and I passed out within 30.
So just what is up with the billionaire backers and why only vote against the $7 trillionaire debtor only 7 percent of the time?
I don't think my liver can take the "answers."
WILLIAM H. HOYT
Russellville
Adults in education
No matter what any state, county or city education/school committee/board tries to do to increase student achievement at distressed (or even moderately achieving) schools, their efforts will be for naught if the students' parents, peers and/or significant others will not encourage them to pay attention and make the most of their educational opportunities throughout their lives. Everyone knows this to be true, but the bureaucracy will not admit it.
Until adults step up, accept responsibility and begin to support their children's education, nothing will change.
SID WOOD
Little Rock
Editorial on 10/20/2014