North metro letters to the editior

Selfish oppose reform I am so absolutely disgusted with those selfish people who are not in favor of health reform.

While waiting for our COBRA insurance to go through (mind you, at $800 a month!), I was told that one of my medicines that needed a refill would be $459! That is one prescription of many.

What happens to me if I just can't get that pill? Go without? Need insulin -- what happens to me then? Do I just go without?

For some, that is what they have to do. What if cancer comes into the equation? Can't afford that!

These are the death panels that are spoken of. Those who are saying no to reform will have the blood of those who go without on their hands.

Death surely comes when medical help is denied.

I just don't know how people can live with themselves knowing their choice is denying poor individuals their right to live. It's sad.

FRIDLEY

Health care reminder The real truth of "health care reform" is that Republicans will play NO part in it. Republicans could only submit ideas (tort reform and state-line insurance rule relaxation) that were ultimately rejected by Democrats.

It is the Democrat Party that struggled to find votes within its own party to create and support an overreaching monster of a bill. It is Democrats who were and are indifferent to public opinion. And it is Democrats and their insatiable desire to spend who will bankrupt the country. Please remember this next November.

TOM BECKJORDEN SR.

BLAINE

President Obama has supported firing all the teachers in a Rhode Island school, partly because of low test scores. The apparent assumption is that every single teacher in that school is at fault.

I can't pretend to know all that was involved, but are there zero exceptions among the teachers? Everybody out with the bathwater?

What aren't they telling us?

One other reason for the firings that we have been told is the teachers' refusal to eat lunch with the students without any compensation. That may not seem like a big deal to people who have never taught in a school with poorly performing high school students. However, it shouldn't take much to imagine the potentially vulnerable environment in that lunchroom.

Besides, lunchtime is an opportunity for teachers to spend time with other adults, so they can refresh themselves, so they can perform during the second half of the day, and so they can perhaps share some ideas.

We're waiting.

JIM BARTOS