Readers Write for Saturday, Aug. 29

I keep wondering: Where are these wonderful health care plans that some at town hall meetings are so adamantly defending?

The reality I see is that I pay more and more each year for my family's plan, which covers less and less each year to a point of ridiculousness. Much like the Mafia (my sincere apologies to the Mafia), the private insurance industry continues to hold a monopoly on setting the rules of coverage and costs without any real competition or accountability.

Our family needs the choice of a public option to survive. The anti-reform folks say they want choice in their health care. Well, so do I. What right do they have to stand in the way of my choice for a public option? Let's be honest. It's a case of the selfish folks who are lucky enough to have a decent plan, who simply don't care about those who don't. Their unspoken motto: As long as I've got mine, that's all that matters to me.

JANICE THURN, GOLDEN VALLEY

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Am I understanding correctly that the Democrats want me to change my position on health care reform because Ted Kennedy died? That's ridiculous.

MARY THOMPSON, LINO LAKES

This would make much of the Lake Street area (including Uptown, Lyn-Lake, the Midtown Global Market and the Abbott-Northwestern campus) easily accessible to light-rail passengers from the airport, southwest and downtown.

STEVE Y. TSAI, MINNEAPOLIS

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I read with interest the commentary by R.D. Zimmerman ("Light-rail rider numbers may steer us wrong," Aug. 27). As an Uptown homeowner and regular transit user, I have been somewhat puzzled by the choice to route the light rail through the Kenilworth/Cedar Lake corridor rather than the Midtown Greenway and up Nicollet or Lyndale. Ridership of the bus routes 17 and 18 is already "too heavy," especially during rush hours.

Light rail could better, and more efficiently, serve the needs of downtown commuters. In many cities, rail or subway supplements bus lines -- it doesn't supplant it.

ERIC MEININGER, MINNEAPOLIS

While it is disappointing to learn that newly elected U.S. Sen. Al Franken has had to cancel a fundraiser because it was being hosted by a convicted swindler (Star Tribune, Aug. 27), it is more disturbing that less than two months into his new job he feels compelled to raise money for a political campaign that is five years away.

All Minnesotans would be better served if Franken would instead focus on the more important aspects of his job -- such as immersing himself in the details of the 1,200-page health care bill.

JACK ULDRICH, MINNEAPOLIS; CHAIR,

INDEPENDENCE PARTY OF MINNESOTA

•Change seats every half-hour like they do on tour bus trips so you get to know each other.

•Sing songs like "I'm Just a Prisoner of Love" and "Don't Fence Me In."

•Elect a committee to study the pros and cons of a passenger revolt.

•Check with Guinness to see if you have set a record yet.

•Ask the cabin crew if it would be OK to plant flowers around the bathroom to improve the aroma.

And, oh yeah, write a note reminding yourself never to fly this airline again.

EDDIE RYSHAVY, PLYMOUTH

The columns of Aug. 22 by Doug Johnson of the Center for Victims of Torture and a group of Republican senators on the issue of a special prosecutor to investigate alleged torture offer a striking contrast of moral values in respect to national and international law as well as in shaping foreign policy.

Johnson advocates for abiding by our commitment to the 1988 U.N. Convention against Torture and for an honest search for the truth about what went wrong on this issue from 2002 to 2008. The senators advocate using their not-to-be challenged concept of national security and the cloak of secrecy to cover possible illegal activities and bad policies.

The principles of Johnson ring truer to the values on which our nation was founded than do those expressed by the senators.

Maybe I am biased, but isn't it ironic what I heard this week on the radio? On one station, I heard many people arguing not to increase taxes to pay for health care, climate change legislation or our education system; however, on a different station someone was arguing that the state Legislature must do something (anything) to keep the Vikings here even if we have to use state funds.