Readers Write for Wednesday, June 24

Peter Nelson ("Where battle line is drawn on health care," June 23) misses the point. His claim that a public plan will sink health care reform ignores the de facto one already in place. That plan is this:

• Don't get sick.

• If you break rule No. 1, go to the emergency room -- somebody or a combination of somebodies will pick up the bill.

Nelson is not alone. Many analysts -- regardless of viewpoint -- seem to fall into the same trap: looking at only part of the problem.

Few, including Nelson, would claim that all is well; rising costs, decreasing coverage, increasing ranks of the uninsured, etc., add up to a large-scale issue that cannot be solved piecemeal.

It might be helpful to the discussion -- and ultimately, to the range of possible solutions -- if we started by acknowledging the entire cost of the entire system.

For starters, Nelson should tell us how taking a public plan off the table addresses employers' skyrocketing health care plan costs, the growing ranks of un- and underinsured people, and the increasing burden on hospitals to provide for uninsured patients.

CHARLES PATTERSON CURRY,

APPLE VALLEY

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President Obama has based his public-relations push for health care reform on putting downward pressure on health care cost growth.

The Congressional Budget Office's fiscal impact study has destroyed any notion that this health care reform effort the Obama administration supports actually reduces health care costs. At a 10-year cost estimate of at least $1.6 trillion, cost containment sure is expensive.

HUTCHINSON, MINN.

There have been several letters to the editor on these pages in recent weeks arguing that it is high time for the Supreme Court to rule on the contested Minnesota Senate race.

Many good reasons have been presented to support such action. I would like to add one more: I am sick and tired of mowing around my Al Franken sign.

JOE DEMuth, Minneapolis

As the heat index reaches deadly heights and we search for solutions, one simple answer comes to mind.

JOHN REYNOLDS,

MERRIFIELD, MINN.

It is a shame that President Obama and many of his supporters are either too young, too ignorant, too analytical or too apathetic to see the correlation between the freedom fighters in Iran and the freedom fighters of Hungary, Poland, Soviet Union, China and so many other brave people throughout history.

Obama would be wise to watch the video footage of President Ronald Reagan when he spoke in support of Lech Walesa and the Polish freedom fighters in 1981.

Reagan understood that it was his duty as a leader of the free world to remind people of what was at stake and of the important distinction between dictatorships and true democracies.

CORBY PELTO, PLYMOUTH

Michael Kennedy's well-stated opinion piece ("Teachers aren't the problem," June 17) identifies the frustrations many of us struggle with as blame for poor student performance is singularly heaped on Minnesota's teachers.

There is, however, one more factor that is too often overlooked when community leaders and politicians focus on standardized testing as the panacea for evaluating teachers. Noteworthy is the fact that a number of our students simply do not want to graduate. High school represents their social network, providing them with opportunities to be with their friends courtesy of daily round-trip transportation that will no longer be available once they depart those hallowed halls.

Increased pressure on schools to promote passing grades on standardized tests will obviously work with students who wish to graduate. For those students who see no future beyond high school, tests provide little, if any, motivation to graduate.

HOWARD W. SCHWARTZ,