Enhance market incentives in health care

I found Charles Edgley’s Wednesday letter insightful. He is quite right. We need to decide if health care is a right or privilege. And, it seems to me, we have already made that decision.

A minimum of health care is already a right. By law, an emergency room may not deny emergency care to anyone due to their ability to pay. And we have created Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention other state and federal programs, that provide a minimum of health insurance for the young, the old and the poor.

So the decision has already been made. Minimal health care is a right.

So now the question becomes, what is the best way to provide health care for the rest of us who are not young, old or poor? In other words, the vast majority of us who are in the productive years of our lives. And the answer to that question, it seems to me, is essentially the system we have now, with perhaps a little tweaking to provide for more competition and portability.

The system we have now is the envy of the world. You never hear of Americans going to Canada or Britain for innovative heath care. Canadians and Britons who are looking for the latest innovations in health care come here. Why would we want to change that?

The question is, do we want to remove market incentives so that everyone has the same, albeit lower, standard of health care? Or do we want to retain and enhance market incentives so that health care in America remains the envy of the world?

Matt Thorley

Las Vegas

Recipe for success

To the editor:

I really enjoyed Howard Stutz’s Thursday story about the South Point and Michael Gaughan. I have always believed Michael Gaughan is one of the unsung heroes of our city.

The credit for lighting the fuse for locals casinos may go to Sam Boyd and Sam’s Town, but it was Michael Gaughan’s Gold Coast that blew the business wide open. With his superior sense for the casino business, he mixed good food, low prices, around-the-clock entertainment, fair play in the casino and plenty of comp. That made the Gold Coast a hit from day one.

The Gold Coast led the way for Station Casinos, Arizona Charlie’s, the Fiesta and more, including more Coast casinos. After living in Las Vegas for 30 years, I can say without a doubt that Michael Gaughan is the most generous operator in the casino business, and it shows by the success of South Point.

cary de grosa

Las Vegas

Raw deal

To the editor:

On Friday, the back page of the Nevada section featured an article about the city dedicating the first of three solar carports. It stated that the three carports will have a lifetime of 30 years and would cost $1.3 million with all funding coming from a HUD grant and an NVEnergy rebate check.

It also stated that the three projects would cut energy costs by about $28,000 per year.

Dividing $1.3 million by $28,000 shows that he projects will pay for themselves in 46.43 years. Forty-six years versus a 30-year lifetime! I am glad HUD and NVEnergy invested in this project and it wasn’t our money. Oops, it is our money — HUD gets money from our taxes and NVEnergy from our electric bills.

I am sure further analysis would show that wasting money in a losing investment is not generating jobs or saving the environment when other external factors are considered (e.g. ethanol production). Who, in the real business world, would buy and install these solar panels?

Richard Holder

Las Vegas

Go Democrats

To the editor:

The Bush-Cheney administration made two of the biggest blunders in history: the invasion of Iraq and the tax cuts for the richest 2 percent. This led to Republican losses in the 2008 election.

President Obama so far has not learned the lesson of failure. He went against what most Democrats hoped for by creating a surge in Afghanistan and he agreeing to extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires.

It is my opinion the Democrats’ loss of control in Congress was a vote against the president. Yes, he accomplished a few good things, but the bottom line is he and some members of Congress did not push or fight hard enough to put in place the things his base rallied for. A true leader gets his troops in line and they follow.

Now the president is blaming the Democrats in Congress for opposing his compromise with the "Party of No" agenda. This is very much against the desires of Democratic voters.

I hope that while the Democrats still have the congressional majority they can rally to get a few good things done that can actually stir up the base rather than diminish it.

Seventy percent of Americans want "don’t ask, don’t tell" repealed.

The majority of Democrats want the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent repealed and to bring the troops home from the two wars. If the president can do this soon, he may not be a one-term president.

Don Ellis

Henderson

Entitled to it

To the editor:

It is just amazing to me that Rep. Dina Titus is trying to create another "feel good" but unnecessary federal program to provide funding for schools to give weekend food to low-income children ("House passes Titus bill on weekend meals," Thursday Review-Journal). As far out as it might sound these days, how about parents providing for and feeding their children on weekends? What a concept.

I would bet that many, if not all, of these people who cannot get it together to prepare a meal on Saturday or Sunday are already receiving some sort of food stamps or other government aid. I’d like to know all that they are getting.

The bottom line: Rep. Titus probably doesn’t even care about "the children," but only cares about starting another federal program to the tune of $10 million a year to start. We all know how that will go, don’t we?

How about looking at all the duplicate, triplicate programs there are already. I’d really like to know how many programs already feed low-income children. This one is just not needed.

Marcia Romano

Las Vegas