Health care, Social Security, today’s youth

U.S. health costs are the highest in the world for drugs, hospitals and doctors. Americans pay more.

Yet, the United States is listed 38th in one ranking and 46th in another among the industrialized nations for overall benefits and health of its people. Healthnet and Reader’s Digest report that health-care industries’ profits are up 175 percent over the last 10 years.

According to McKinsey Global Institute, drug prices in the United States are 50 percent higher than the rest of the world, and drug companies have spent more than a billion dollars for lobbyists in Washington, D.C.

Hospitals set their fees high because they must negotiate with insurance companies for their pay. Experts say this creates a vicious cycle of insurance premiums rising as doctor and hospital fees rise.

U.S. doctors earn far more than the world’s other doctors, but they have more costs, including malpractice insurance and medical school loans.

Health experts offer many solutions to attain lower health costs such as insuring the uninsured (the Affordable Care Act), price controls, preventative medicine, tort reform, computerized records and a single-payer system.

It’s interesting how our elected representatives are able to find funds for increases in their government salaries and tax-cut benefits for the wealthy, but they can only search for ways to reduce Social Security as a way of solving the budget crisis.

I believe that rather than reducing these funds, they should increase them by eliminating the cutoff point in paying these taxes.

Social Security is a regressive tax. Not everyone pays the same rate.

I pay Social Security on every dollar I make. However, if I were to reach $113,700 I wouldn’t have to pay any more even if I made $500,000 or $5 million or $5 billion a year.

If things were fair, and I know they’re not, each of us would be paying on all of our earnings. I believe if this were done, there wouldn’t be any Social Security crisis.

This, of course, would mean that the billionaires and millionaires would get to pay their fair share to help keep Social Security solvent.

There are hundreds of youths and young adults who spend their time after school getting into trouble instead of furthering their education or doing their homework. All they need is a positive outlet for their brilliant ideas and innovative creations, and that is exactly what Youth MOVE Kansas City encourages.

The organization brings youths and young adults from all over the Kansas City area together at the Truman Medical Center Loft to brainstorm ways to bring together our community regardless of socioeconomic background, race or other factors.

It is amazing to see so many of the promising members of our society come together, especially the way Youth MOVE KC does once a year in hosting a youth summit. The completely youth-organized conference allows Kansas City’s young people to learn more about themselves and their surroundings in a relaxed environment.

In regard to the Jan. 9 column, “There’s no moralizing in baseball,” Sam Mellinger badly missed the point.

He believes that the character clause in the Hall of Fame election guidelines is outdated and should be done away with. He states that we already have Hall of Famers with past and personal choices we may judge as ugly but were still good enough to be elected. He implies that Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and others who have been associated with the use of performance-enhancing drugs should be rewarded by selection into the Hall of Fame.

I totally disagree because they achieved their results by cheating. My dictionary defines the word cheating as to act dishonestly, to violate the rules deliberately to gain an unfair advantage in a competitive situation.

It is the receiving of an award for ability by dishonest means. Lance Armstrong or any of the previously mentioned players would be good examples of this.

Mr. Mellinger states that only 10-year members of the Baseball Writers Association are allowed to vote and laments that a sizable number of the writers took up the cause of moral judge and thus the cheaters will not be voted in.

Mr. Mellinger, who is three years from having a vote, should learn from these more experienced and seasoned sportswriters.

I hope over the next three years he will mature and will be capable of seeing the difference between athletes who act badly and those who cheat to gain an unfair advantage.

Memo to all American businesses: If your employees must supplement their pay with food stamps just to survive, America does not need your business. Period. End of story.

On electronic cigarettes, some people speak of them as if they were a bad thing. I have smoked regular cigarettes for more than 20 years, meanwhile hacking up blood and everything else you can think of.

I have been on the electronic cigarettes for more than a month. Not only do I feel better, I’m not coughing up blood anymore.

I do believe minors should not be smoking at all. Authorities need to set an age limit and not sell to anyone younger than that age.

Why would health officials want to punish the people who smoke these electronic cigarettes, which are not bad for anybody? Leave us alone.

I just think this is a way for the government to tie our hands and make more money. The e-cigarette is the best thing that’s ever happened to smokers to help them try to quit the nasty regular cigarettes.

Speaking about what’s bad for people, how about all the crap that the government has put in the regular cigarettes to make them “better”? All it’s doing is killing us.

But that’s OK, right?

I have been reading letters from anti-gun readers and would like to share a story.

It was a Saturday evening, and I was visiting a Wal-Mart. I was exiting a parking space when a big black pickup came speeding down the lane. I honked my horn, and the other driver slammed on his brakes and blocked me in.

He was a large man and was so mad his face was red and the veins in his neck were showing. He pulled a tire iron out of the bed of his truck and yelled at me to get out of my car because he was “going to kick my butt.”

I rolled down my window a bit and told him three times not to do this, and he continued with his threats. The third time I held up my 9mm handgun and told him to drop the iron, get in his vehicle and leave.

He quickly complied and drove away. A dangerous threat was averted without a shot being fired.

This could have happened to anyone. Concealed carry, right or wrong? I think you know how I vote.

Since President Barack Obama’s inauguration, average family income is down more than $3,000 per year, the unemployment rate is stuck around 7 percent and the number of people in the workforce is at historic lows.

The president’s answer to this is to propose a raise in the minimum wage and to spend more tax dollars on pre-kindergarten schooling.

An increase in the minimum wage creates an artificial increase in incomes because it is not based on real increased economic activity. Many economists believe it increases unemployment and even if it does not increase unemployment it will certainly not decrease it.

Instead of recognizing the negative effects of his push for higher taxes, Obamacare, onerous environmental regulations and threats of more of the same, the president insists on taking the same path that has resulted in a stagnant economy and a worse-than-stagnant jobs picture.

What is that saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

This story was originally published January 14, 2014 at 6:13 PM with the headline "Health care, Social Security, today’s youth."