Letters: Readers discuss Medicaid cuts, St. Luke’s Health System and coaching women’s athletics
Our real needs
If we really want to make America great again, we need to think about liberty and justice for all. Our most vulnerable — Medicaid recipients, the disabled and mentally ill, the poor and Medicare seniors on fixed incomes — need a voice.
In Kansas, Medicaid cuts have created a health care crisis. Cutting aid and services will result in more shootings, increased homelessness, more abuse, a significantly diminished quality of life and an increased number of suicides.
Is this the America we want?
Rosemary Pappert
Roeland Park
No contest
On the morning of May 24, my husband told me there was an article in the paper about St. Luke’s Health System that I might find interesting. When I found the story on Page 6A with the headline, “Keeping up with KU: St. Luke’s signs cancer trial agreement,” I was immediately put off.
The story was reported as a business story — not a story about health care, education or medical research, but another article about KU vs St. Luke’s.
Although representatives from both institutions seem to agree that increased opportunities for area patients is a good thing, the emphasis of the article seemed to this reader to be adversarial.
I believe The Kansas City Star has primed and stoked the feud between our area’s two leading health care institutions.
Competition in the marketplace can result in better goods and services, but when competition becomes rivalry it serves neither the institutions involved nor the community.
Candace McDowell
St. Luke’s board member
1993-2003
Parkville
Love/hate
Republicans are real Americans who love their country more than everyone else.
What I don’t understand is how they still hate everything about America.
John Meyer
Blue Springs
Consolidated news
The Sinclair Broadcast Group’s purchase of local TV stations will bring more than just an increase in conservative spin. (May 23, 11A, “Sinclair could become the next Fox News”)
It, like the loss of local ownership of radio stations, will be another blow to the diversity of news.
It is another step against freedom of the press, and another indication that our “corporatic” government is replacing our democratic government.
If the framers of our Constitution were around today, they would force all stations to present news from independent sources representative of the points of view of all countries, so that voters could make fair and balanced decisions in an increasingly connected world.
Dick Whitehouse
Olathe
KCI debate
Has anyone asked what the primary function of Kansas City International, or any airport, is?
It is to provide the safe, expeditious flow of traffic — period. All else is considered amenities.
Our current terminals provide functional, highly convenient access. Drop-offs and arrivals are terrific.
Should there be more and better dining facilities, some shops, waiting rooms, more and better restrooms? Definitely.
But let’s say you have a 50-year-old house that needs major repairs. Would you raze it and build a new one? Very doubtful.
Saying that it would be the same cost to remodel the existing terminals or to replace them with a new single one just doesn’t sound kosher to me.
There should be only one option: Repair and renovate the existing terminals.
Ken Beauchamp
Kansas City
Women’s coaches
I was intrigued by two articles that appeared on Page 3B of the May 19 Star: “Earleywine ‘couldn’t be more happy at Mizzou’” and “New UMKC coach ‘hates to lose.’”
Both stories highlighted coaches of women’s teams. Mizzou softball coach Ehren Earleywine is male, while UMKC basketball coach Jacie Hoyt is female.
Several thoughts echoed through my head. Why is one university progressive and the other backward in their thinking about coaching women’s athletic teams?
I have to ask: Why in the 21st century are men still coaching female athletes? I am continually amazed by the mentality that only men are capable of being good coaches.
I call upon all universities, colleges, high schools and summer leagues to move into the present day and recruit women to be coaches for women’s athletic teams.
Orchids to UMKC and onions to MU.
Paul S. Smith
Liberty