Insurance stability key
The Post-Gazette's Oct. 11 article "Insurers Split on Health Insurance Legislation" gave the different perspectives of health insurance companies on proposed small group reform legislation, but did not present the views of small businesses and their workers.

As the chief sponsor of the legislation referred to in the article (House Bill 1240), I have spoken with many small business leaders from across the state. Their message is loud and clear: They want stability in health insurance costs so that they won't face staggering increases in their rates just because an employee had the bad luck to get seriously ill or hospitalized for a long time. Second, they want an insurance system that is fair and just: One that doesn't eliminate all but one health insurance choice because an employee is labeled a "bad risk."

If we look at what small business owners really want, I believe that House Bill 1240 will achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of small businesses in the commonwealth. It will not immediately reduce every employer's health benefit costs overnight. But it begins to lay a foundation for a much fairer health insurance market for many small businesses that want to offer some protection for their workers.

PA. REP. CURT SCHRODER, R-CHESTER
Harrisburg

Alternative energy needed
I would like to offer some additional information on alternative energy in the wake of Jim McKay's article ("Renewable energy still may be too expensive," Oct. 23).

Just recently, two teams of university researchers, one at UCLA and one at New Mexico State University (in cooperation with Wake Forest University) announced breakthroughs in organic (carbon-based) solar cells, with promise to make solar power much cheaper than at present. The NMSU team managed to hit a 5.2 percent energy-output level, and both teams feel confident that they can reach at least 10 percent in just a few years. That would bring plastic solar cells on par with conventional cells and revolutionize the solar power market

On the subject of wind, I would like to offer a quote from a piece found online from the American Geophysical Union:

"A new global wind power map has quantified global wind power and may help planners place turbines in locations that can maximize power from the winds and provide widely available low-cost energy. After analyzing more than 8,000 wind speed measurements in an effort to identify the world's wind power potential for the first time, Cristina Archer and Mark Jacobson of Stanford University suggest that wind captured at specific locations, if even partially harnessed, can generate more than enough power to satisfy the world's energy demands" (Physorg.com, May 16, 2005).

We can do better as a society in regard to how we get our energy, especially with global warming posing a serious threat to our economy and security.

Incidentally, I followed up on a piece in this paper on a computer climate model developed by a team at Purdue University. This model is the most comprehensive ever attempted, and took five months to run on the university's supercomputers. It predicts substantial climate changes for the United States over the next 100 years.

Please pay attention, folks. Our society is in for the fight of its life. We must now take deliberate steps to make our economy a sustainable one if our kids are to enjoy a stable, healthy future.

TIM KELLY
Westwood

Miffed by windshield note
I read Saturday's article titled "For Grocers the Answer Is In the Cards." Despite the recommendations of highly educated researchers, supermarkets do not need to study their roster of products gleaned from loyalty cards: They would be better suited to study their everyday interactions with "loyal" customers rather than the list of products.

My local Giant Eagle shares a parking area with the Port Authority Park-n-Ride. Park-n-Ride spaces in the lot are marked in white; Giant Eagle spaces, in yellow. Every other day of my work week, after I exit the bus, I drive my car from a white space to a yellow space and stop in the Giant Eagle -- well, maybe every other day save an occasional three in the last six months. On those three days there were no white spaces. So I parked in a yellow space tucked a good way off from the main entrance.

This last, Giant Eagle management plastered a note on my car windshield threatening to tow at my expense, proclaiming that the parking lot is for Giant Eagle customers only. The management, clearly failed to recognize the most simple of marketing strategies: a very convenient captive market turned sour by mean-spiritedness, and not likely to show up on loyalty card research.

TERESA BRADLEY
Monroeville