Cost conformity ahead

If it were possible for the Supreme Court to allow the health care individual mandate for states that want to unify in reducing their health care costs, I would predict that the majority of the states would soon voluntarily join when faced with the reality of skyrocketing health care costs.

Eddie J. Thomas

Wichita

Kudos to celebration

Congratulations and thank you to KCPT, Channel 19, the Kansas City Symphony and all the different people who worked hard in presenting “Celebration at the Station” on May 27. It was glorious.

My husband was a career Navy man, so my favorite music was honoring the men and women of all the services. It was nice to see the mayor stand up as a proud Marine.

Rosie Neth

Lee’s Summit

Poor taste in photos

Whoever decided to put a photo of cute bunnies on the cover of your May 27 Star Magazine, “Rabbit Revival,” to entice animal lovers to read the feature, and then on the inside pages show a rabbit being barbecued, is insensitive.

I’ve lived in countries where they eat dog. Why not shoot a photo of cuddly puppies, and then have another photo of one being grilled?

Be sure to include a few recipes, like deep fried Fido or Rover fajitas.

Gary Bloomfield

Belton

America for Americans

This is in response to a May 25 letter writer on racial profiling worries. I’ll keep it simple:

1. Calling Republicans racist is profiling, so you are just as guilty.

2. President Barack Obama being black is the only thing that got him into office, nothing else.

3. Republicans wanting Obama to be a one-term president is because of Obama’s failed policies, which are destroying this country. We can’t take four more years of this.

4. The American public has had enough of illegal immigrants in this country, and we want something done about it. Unlike the corrupt government and authorities on the payrolls of the drug cartels in Mexico, our local law enforcement officers are doing what they are paid to do — enforce the law. I am sorry if doing their job causes an inconvenience, but enough is enough.

5. And finally, you stated that people need to think before they vote. If they had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because Obama wouldn’t have been elected in the first place.

Oh, and by the way, Republicans may be making Obama’s life miserable, but Obama is making millions of lives miserable.

Rick Bullock

Clearview City, Kan.

Health care reform

After another legislative session ends in Missouri, how in good conscience can people allow the Republican Party to continue controlling the House and Senate?

As an independent, I am disgusted by their efforts to abolish the Affordable Care Act.

As voters, we must educate ourselves with facts instead of being lied to with politically motivated rhetoric. According to many organizations like HealthCare.gov, Missouri has already received more than $21.8 million in grants for affordable insurance exchanges.

The Affordable Care Act is helping Missourians by providing new coverage options for young adults and more affordable prescriptions for seniors, covering preventive services with no deductible or co-pay, providing better value for your premium dollars, requiring those companies to publicly justify rate increases, removing lifetime limits on health benefits and stopping the discriminatory practice of refusing heath care insurance to those with pre-existing conditions.

The Affordable Care Act has also given Missouri more than $95.5 million to implement other programs to provide quality health care.

See www.healthcare.gov/law/resources/mo.html for more facts.

The already paid-for Affordable Care Act allows more access to heath care for the uninsured, and it gives those who are insured more choices for affordable, comprehensive health care insurance.

Richard G. Green

Ozark, Mo.

McClanahan column

I found it interesting that E. Thomas McClanahan would use Sweden as an example of a government that promotes entrepreneurship (5-27, Commentary, “Time to take a cue from Sweden, of all places”). Sweden has universal health care primarily supported by federal tax dollars.

Imagine how many more entrepreneurs the U.S. might have if people had the same health insurance coverage whether they worked for themselves or for a large corporation or government agency.

By the way, Sweden spends a much smaller percentage of its GDP on health care than the U.S. does.

Phil Summers

Kansas City

Learning tolerance

It is apparent that the people who are against the gay community are Republicans and want to treat gays and lesbians like second-class citizens.

Everyone wants to quote the Bible, which was written by mankind. I believe the words “tolerance” and “love” are in this same book, which everyone seems to quote from.

The gay community doesn’t affect my life in any way, why should it affect yours?

Many other countries that rule by their faiths, if you haven’t noticed, treat all of their citizens as if they aren’t second-class citizens.

It’s time for people to stop hiding behind the Bible and do what’s right in this country. You can’t go to church on Sunday and then sin all the other days of the week. That makes you a bigot.

Dave Grant

Kansas City

Kansas tax cuts

The Star’s May 22 editorial, “Kansas tax cut plan is an exercise in hubris,” said Gov. Sam Brownback’s contention that lower tax rates will bring a job surge that will overcome any revenue loss, is “hot air” and “think tank logic” and that in signing his tax cut plan Brownback is “knowingly jeopardizing the state’s future for the sake of ego and unproven theories.”

Free-market “think tank logic,” yes, but cutting taxes to spur economic growth is hardly “unproven theory.” Nearly every time taxes have been cut on a state or federal level positive economic results have followed.

Texas had major tax cuts under then-governor George W. Bush and under current governor Rick Perry. Texas has been one of the few states that have flourished during the economic downturn, creating more jobs.

After the federal tax cuts of the 1920s, post-war 1940s, 1960s, 1980s and early 2000s, economic growth brought jobs and revenue.

The Brownback tax cuts will also prove to be a huge success, but that likely still won’t stop the liberals at The Star and elsewhere from attacking tax cuts because they haven’t been swayed yet by evidence that tax cuts work.

Mark S. Robertson

Independence

Investigate Obama

President Barack Obama said recently that a $2 billion trading loss sustained by JPMorgan Chase is “why Wall Street reform is so important.”

“We don’t know all the details,” Obama said, but “it’s going to be investigated.”

President Obama and his government have blown trillions of dollars in 31/2 years. Where is the investigation on that? Maybe in November?

The difference? JPMorgan Chase lost money that belonged to voluntary investors, and they knew the risks.

Mr. Obama and company went through taxpayers’ money, most of which was taken by the force of law and certainly was not voluntary.

Larry Dickstein

Lone Jack

C.W. Gusewelle

I spent about two weeks in Kansas City with my father just before he passed away recently. While cleaning out his things, I came across an autographed copy of C.W. Gusewelle’s “A Buick in the Kitchen.”

Reading this collection reminded me of the years I spent in Kansas City and how much I looked forward to picking up The Star and reading his column. I also found it rather encouraging as I come from a long line of less-than-admirable ancestry, share my home with cats and dogs, neglect my yard work, have a Buick in my kitchen and am otherwise counted among those very much like Gusewelle.

Somehow, I feel qualified to write a column for The Star as a result.

Phil Parker

El Paso, Texas

Religious freedom

I am not a particularly religious person, but I have great respect for those who follow the guiding principles of their faith. Yet, I seem to remember a part of our Constitution that clearly guarantees free exercise thereof.

This apparently has been forgotten by the folks on the hard left who think it is fine to invoke their secular atheism into their political rhetoric as if to say that those who do have religious or political beliefs belong in a lower status of American citizenship.

When I hear and see this sort of thing, I am reminded of words attributed to Karl Marx, one of the most important and revered figures in progressive thought: “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.”

First they came for the Catholics …

Randolph Oberlin

Leavenworth