There are better ways than this health insurance mess

Regarding "Highmark Seeks Moderate Boost of 6.6 Percent on Average for Individuals: Small Businesses Face 7.6 Percent Renewals" (May 6): If only that were so for my small business. Our new rates arrived in the mail the other day with a 43.6 percent increase. This is on top of 12 to 16 percent increases the last few years.

We have been loyal Highmark customers for 20-plus years and feel that it's crucial to offer a quality health insurance plan to our employees. Like a lot of Western Pennsylvania companies we have an aging work force (average of 51 years), and Highmark has penalized us for that even though our oldest workers are some of our best.

Our choices are now to: 1) Fire the old folks and hire a bunch of 20-year-olds to get better rates; 2) Shop around for other carriers, although Highmark and UPMC so dominate the market that there really isn't much choice; 3) Join the other 45-plus million Americans who go without health insurance; 4) Pay the new rates using three to four months of profits.

The health insurance mess is a national crisis, and I don't blame Highmark (although it has had record profits). As columnist Paul Krugman suggested in the same issue ("Death by Insurance," May 6 Weekend Perspectives), why not expand Medicare to cover everyone?

Medicare runs very efficiently with very little overhead and is well received by both seniors and doctors. Small businesses like mine could buy into the program. A recent study shows that the British get better care and are healthier than Americans at a fraction of the cost.

There has to be a better way than going broke paying for health insurance or dying living without it.

SAM BERTENTHAL
D.H. Bertenthal & Sons
South Fayette

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Socialized medicine

I read the April 26 Midweek Perspectives piece "Health Insurance for All -- Yes, We Can" with interest.

Wanting to know more I decided to read Pennsylvania Senate Bill 1085 as recommended by lawyer Steven Larchuk and Dr. Scott Tyson.

As the saying goes "the devil is in the details." The first 39 pages of the bill are concerned with the many administrative and board positions that will be created should this bill pass. These pages also establish that these administrators will be funded, housed, staffed, appointed and compensated. There are at least 10 administrative/board positions proposed and their jobs are to oversee, plan, establish, investigate, develop, evaluate, determine reimbursement and approve expenditures.

Apparently, these new bureaucrats will be funded by a nice-sounding "trust fund."

It wasn't until section 904, page 42 of Senate Bill 1085 that funding of the "trust fund" becomes evident:

Receipts from the tax of 10 percent of gross payroll, including self-employment profits.

Receipts from the Individual Wellness Tax of 3 percent of personal earned, passive, pension and investment income.

Funds obtained from existing or future federal health care programs.

Funds from dedicated sources specified by the General Assembly.

Let's recap: SB 1085 is a Pennsylvania Senate bill that requires the formation of a government-run layered bureaucracy and would require a tax increase.

It would be wise to remember the definition of socialized medicine: a government-regulated system for providing health care for all by means of subsidies derived from taxation.

Socialized medicine by any other name is socialized medicine.

CINDY DONNELLY
Richland

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Falling far behind

I was not going to comment about the new Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers contract until I read the letter from Lyn Engelhardt ("The Teachers Union Did the Best Job Possible for Its Membership," April 30) and heard the speech by Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt to the University of Pittsburgh School of Education.

When I started teaching in the Pittsburgh Public Schools in 1966, we were among the best of the poorly paid teachers. Through the next two decades we stayed at or near the top of best-paid teachers in Western Pennsylvania. Since the late 1990s, Pittsburgh teachers have fallen thousands of dollars behind all the suburban locals represented by the same parent union (the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers).

During the 1980s, Pittsburgh teachers earned as much as other teachers in their careers. Since then, teachers who spent an entire career in the Pittsburgh Public Schools have seen their earning power diminish.

When I retired in 2001 after 35 years in the Pittsburgh Public Schools my pension was less than the pension for most of the suburban teachers for whom I negotiated. The pension and lifetime earnings will be significantly less in the coming years because of the last two contracts. The Pittsburgh teachers will find themselves more than $20,000 a year behind the suburban schools.

The failure to apply any raise internally in the salary schedule will also make younger teachers suffer in the Pittsburgh school system, which will be unable to attract the best and brightest new teachers.

BERNARD K. MURRAY
Coraopolis

The writer is a retired Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers executive committee member and a retired assistant to the former president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers.

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Wage protection

In response to the April 8 article "Wage Ruling May Raise Road Costs": First, the prevailing wage law is not a new policy. It has been in effect for more than 40 years. The prevailing wage law applies to all public projects over $25,000. The Ridge administration broke the law by allowing local governments to reconstruct our roads without using the prevailing wage act.

The prevailing wage law was created to protect Pennsylvania businesses from out-of-state, low-wage competition and to ensure the Pennsylvania taxpayers the opportunity to work on state-funded projects, which they paid for. It also helps to keep our taxpayers' dollars in the local area. When out-of-state contractors are awarded these projects, they take our tax dollars out of Pennsylvania to buy houses, cars and durable goods in other states.

Second, you are misleading the public by stating that the cost of highway construction projects will increase by 30 percent under the prevailing wage law. The fact is that the total cost for labor on a road construction project is a mere 10 percent of the total project cost, which makes it impossible to arrive at the exaggerated amounts portrayed by the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs.

Third, the wages used on these projects were arrived at by a survey done under the Ridge administration, which the Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. refused to participate in. As for Associated Builders and Contractors, it does not represent the construction industry. I checked its Web site and a large number of its members are not construction companies; they are insurance companies, lawyers and printing companies.

FRANK A. SIRIANNI
President
Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades Council
Harrisburg

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Not so smooth

I read the article "Transition Program Helps Move Patients Out of Nursing Homes," and I want to tell you it is not as easy as they make it sound. I have a soon-to-be 94-year-old aunt for whom we got a nice senior apartment close to our homes. I finally had her accepted on the waiver program, which was supposed to help us with aides coming to her home. Wrong. I kept a log for more than two months. On some days nobody came for the morning shift; on other days, nobody came for the evening shift. Some days an aide never showed up at all.

When I called the agency, the answer would be "we are sorry, we are short-handed." So, if my sister or I hadn't checked on our aunt every day, she would be in bed all day without breakfast or medication. Our only alternative was to find a personal care home, which I am sure cost way more than her staying at home on her own.

She is not the happy person she once was, but we had no choice because it was a constant worry about her being alone. So tell me again, how does this work? I guess she was one of those cases that fell through the cracks.

ARLENE HANLON
Brookline

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Give some help to New Orleans by visiting there

A recent trip with my family to New Orleans for the Jazz and Heritage Festival proved to be disturbing and enlightening.

There is a true sense of strength and resolve from people who have been stripped of the barest essentials. With many businesses not ever to open, sporadic mail delivery and poor water quality, they face another possibly devastating hurricane season in a few weeks.

Much of the city is in ruins, with abandoned cars that have been stripped and litter in the streets yet to be removed. Every day the news is filled with Katrina stories. It is easy for us to forget the devastation this area has suffered. Do they feel we have forgotten? Have we?

These strong-willed people deserve some sort of quality of life. Parts of New Orleans look worse than many Third World countries.

We can support them through their tourism industry. Much of the French Quarter is open, but businesses are struggling. Consider an eye-opening, educational trip to a city that is trying to survive. New Orleans boasts first-class hotels, restaurants and art galleries. Its residents are gracious people who need to get back to some sense of normalcy.

SALLY KNAPP KOCAN
Richland

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