Highmark offers the 'gift' of health care gone mad

Regarding "Highmark Offers the Ultimate Get-Well Card" (Nov. 2): Highmark has exceeded my wildest fantasy about the insanity of our health-care mess by selling health-care "gift cards."

Over the last few years I have worked to wrench health care away from the new robber barons of for-profit medicine. Every Christmas I have suggested that we (the Western PA Coalition for Single-Payer Health Care) sponsor a "health care Santa." Our Santa would hand out coupons for free appendectomies, chemotherapy (one treatment per coupon), diabetes medications or brain surgery (the grand prize). I meant this as a sick joke to accentuate the utter madness of a system where parents have to hold bake sales and put cans in convenience stores to collect charity money to save their ill children.

But Highmark has -- like the Grinch -- stolen my Christmas fun. Nothing says "holiday" like giving Grandpa a little help to pay for prostate surgery to keep the cancer from spreading to his bones and dooming him to agonizing death. What could be more meaningful to a soon-to-be bankrupt family sinking under the weight of unpayable medical bills than $25 off?

You can no longer make this stuff up. Reality overtakes our ability to express our outrage.

VIRGINIA (GINNY) ESKRIDGE
Shadyside

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Disrespectful airline

US Airways not only reneged on its agreement with Pittsburgh, it also seems to have lost any commitment to passengers being treated with dignity and respect. When US Airways abandoned Pittsburgh as a hub, it switched to the Philadelphia airport where flights are so frequently late that wise passengers factor in at least an extra hour to accommodate delays when making connections.

US Airways chose, instead of our clean and efficient airport, an already overcrowded airport. The terminal is dirty, with so few seats that passengers are forced to sit on the floor and in the walkways. Boarding is chaotic. Additional waits on the tarmac are so typical that the pilots just say "as usual" when announcing the delay.

On a recent European trip, we were forced to circle over the airport for more than an hour both on the departure and the return. Passengers pay for these delays both in higher fuel costs and the added cost to global warming, to say nothing about the lost time. All of this is needless.

Pittsburgh's beautiful airport, always highly ranked by air travelers, sits clean but empty. Not only the city but also the passengers pay the price of US Airways abandoning Pittsburgh.

CLAIRE KEYES
Point Breeze

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Professional conduct

I am a member of the bargaining unit that is on strike (a legal activity) in the Seneca Valley School District. On the picket line I have experienced the "insulting tones, disparaging remarks, [and] finger pointing" mentioned by Ken Dash in his Oct. 30 letter ("School Strike Features Adults Out of Control").

In a now infamous e-mail, one of the Seneca Valley school directors has also referred to a number of "deadwood" teachers he "would not want anywhere near" his children ("Board Member's 'Deadwood' Comment Rankles Striking Seneca Valley Teachers," Oct. 25). Teachers have not engaged in name-calling and "ugly behavior" described by Mr. Dash.

In fact, the vast majority of community members were unaware we have been without a contract since June 2006 because teachers have been in the classroom, doing their jobs and behaving in a professional manner.

It was the school district that chose to involve the media with a public forum, which it announced before inviting the union. KDKA radio did the same, announcing a town hall meeting before inviting the union. The teachers' negotiating team participated in the town hall meeting; the school district directors on their negotiating team chose not to participate.

Mr. Dash refers to "outright propaganda that both sides are spouting." I agree that statistics can be carefully selected and manipulated to support one position or the other. For that very reason, taxpayers should be getting their information from both sides and making determinations on their own. The community has ready access to information from the district. The teachers' viewpoint is available on their Web site, www.svteachers.com.

SANDRA SIKORA
Penn Hills

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Halloween last straw

Well, here it is ... another Halloween come and gone. And after saying it year after year, I think I finally mean it. This will be my last year passing out candy. Whatever happened to the cute little youngsters who would come around, their parents walking with them, and so proud of their costumes that were carefully picked out and accessorized? Nowadays, the kids are in high school, nobody says "trick or treat," and a few may mumble "thank you."

It is a shame what has happened to the fun ol' days of actually looking forward to seeing the kids' costumes. And if the kids weren't too old, they were in strollers, some unable to walk. So the parents would leave the child on the sidewalk, and they would come up to the door explaining they were "collecting" for their young ones. But I guess that is better than the kids who get driven around, stuffed in a van like sardines, and who come piling out, running to the few houses around them, then all jamming back in to go 20 feet to do it all over again.

Parents need to take into consideration that if their child is old enough to actually ask what I'm passing out and walk away if they don't like it, it is time to start staying home and passing out treats rather than going around collecting them.

MISSI MORGAN
North Versailles

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Invaluable exhibit

I feel compelled to respond to the writings of Rabbi Danny Schiff (" 'BODIES': Don't Go," Oct. 14 Forum) and others regarding the "BODIES" exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center. I am astonished that people who admittedly did not see the exhibit felt themselves experts in deciding its merits. An objective person would have the following opinions after seeing it:

1. The exhibit was respectful, in good taste and emphasized the complexity and majesty of the human body.

2. The detailed studies were remarkable and obviously done by people who have great respect for the human body and a desire to provide a unique educational message.

3. The exhibit clearly had a profound and positive effect on the many high school students who were there at the time we were. Also their written comments were uniformly positive. I would not be surprised if this experience stimulated some of these young people to consider a medically related career, to the benefit of our future.

I have never seen a more educational and dignified medical-anatomic exhibit. It did not diminish respect for the human body; rather it gave one a feeling of great respect for what made us what we are.

HIRSH WACHS, M.D., Ph.D.
Squirrel Hill

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Lincoln's bed is in good hands at our museum

Regarding your Oct. 25 editorial "Lincoln's Bed: The Heinz History Center Is a First-Rate Showcase": Your comments made me somewhat uneasy as you implied that seemingly the only place for the "bed" was the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. Although I subscribe to the fact that the history center is one of the finest museums in telling the story of Western Pennsylvania, Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Military Museum is also one of the finest museums in the area telling the story of our military heroes.

The Lincoln bed came to us through an agreement with Allegheny County, the Heinz History Center and Soldiers & Sailors. Through the efforts of our curator and artistic director, we have erected an outstanding exhibit of the bedroom, the provenance of Lincoln's visit and the history of the Monongahela House. Our education department has created an interesting and informative tour for everyone. My staff is well trained in the interpretation, display and preservation of artifacts.

Soldiers & Sailors has engaged in various projects with the history center, and this project is no different. We are pleased to have the Lincoln bed for one year, and my professional staff has done a great job in presenting this part of Pittsburgh history.

I would invite the Post-Gazette staff and all residents to view our exhibit and our museum. I know you will see, as the hundreds upon hundreds of visitors who have already seen the Lincoln exhibit, that Soldiers & Sailors is also capable and an asset to Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and Pennsylvania.

RON GANCAS
President and CEO
Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Military Museum
Oakland

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