Letters: Readers discuss adoption, Obamacare repeal and Missouri’s budget
Adoptive family
It was nice to see the tremendous response from people interested in adopting the five siblings from Kansas. (March 14, 1A, “The story behind the ‘Family Wanted’ plea of five siblings”)
I hope this story generated opportunities for the thousands of other non-infant children desperately in need of loving families.
Unfortunately, one line in the story does a great disservice to adopted children and their families. When telling of a couple from Illinois who had difficulty accessing the Kansas adoption site, the reporter wrote. “Brittany and Stephen Fleming, parents of three children of their own ...”
To make such a distinction serves only to diminish the relationship between an adopted child and his or her parents. I may not have given birth to my two children, but they are most definitely “children of my own.”
In the future, use “biological children” or, better yet, simply state that the couple has three children.
Bridget FitzGerald
Kansas City
Don’t replace
All this discussion about the health care plan is based on a false premise. Health care is not a right, but something that can be purchased by the consumer, like many things in a free society.
The Affordable Care Act should be repealed and not replaced. The private sector can provide health insurance at a lower cost. When competition exists, the cost goes down.
Stop trying to make this a socialist country and get back to capitalism. This has served our country for more than 240 years, and I still trust the people to make these decisions. We do not need the government taking any more of our freedoms.
Leon Cook
Kansas City
State spending
I firmly believe our state budget should focus on funding necessities such as public safety, infrastructure and education. However, excessive growth in entitlement spending has significantly hampered our ability to fund key sections of the budget.
In 2007, the state’s Medicaid system was 28.2 percent of the budget, $5.6 billion. For 2017, Medicaid’s share of the budget is $10.3 billion — 37.7 percent of the budget. This rate of spending is not sustainable.
Having a safety net for the less fortunate is important, but Missouri’s entitlement programs have gone far beyond this purpose. This excess does significant harm and hampers funding for other items — such as transportation and workforce training — that can promote economic opportunity and ultimately give more families a path out of poverty.
To get our budget back on track, we must have a serious discussion about how to reform entitlements. I truly believe Missouri can lead the way on this issue by working with our colleagues at the federal level to put more power in the states’ hands to restructure these programs, allowing us to reduce costs while still providing a safety net for those in need.
Mike Parson
Missouri
Lieutenant Governor
Jefferson City
Fair care
Our esteemed elected officials should be entitled to the same quality health care our military gets, don’t you think? It would give them firsthand knowledge of the VA system and the level of care veterans receive.
Then, when our representatives are not in session, they can make appointments and go the nearest VA center. If it is good enough for our military, why not them?
Take action now, folks and insist on it. Start a movement. You control Congress by your vote.
Anne Barker
Lake Tapawingo
No comparison
What a sharp contrast The Star displayed with the op-ed feature “The right health care solution.” (March 14, 9A) It’s a telling snapshot of the problem.
On one side of the page we have Sen. Roy Blunt, rolling out boilerplate assurances that, although “Obamacare is wreaking havoc,” Republicans are hard at work on a “step-by-step, patient-centered approach” to improve health care.
Raise your hand if you’ve heard that one before. The Congressional Budget Office, and practically every other group that actually deals with delivering real health care to real people in the real world, begs to strongly differ that the GOP has found it.
The contrast with Alice Allen’s moving testimonial about her brother the cancer patient could not be more glaring. Alice lives in the real world, where legislative changes could literally spell the difference between life and death. Is there anything more substantive than a rosy platitude in the Republicans’ plan for her and her brother? Not that I can see.
Blunt, like so many Republicans in Congress, seems to be living in an alternate universe.
Jan S. Gephardt
Westwood
This story was originally published March 15, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss adoption, Obamacare repeal and Missouri’s budget."