In "Highmark Executive Says Health Care Changes Are Necessary But Should Stop Short of a Public Insurance Option" (Nov. 12), Dr. Donald R. Fischer, chief medical officer of Highmark, said, "A public plan, drawing money and customers away from private insurers, also would 'decrease the opportunity for innovation that happens at private plans.'"

Since when has the health insurance industry been responsible for "innovation," other than making sure we are paying too much for health care and making sure insurance executives are well paid?

The public has no responsibility at all to assure the well-being of the health insurance industry, much less that of the pharmaceutical industry.

If they are not serving the public -- and they aren't -- then they should not exist. The public is interested in health care, not interveners like the health insurance "industry."

While it may be true than on average "Fares Fall Nearly 35 Percent at Pittsburgh International Airport" (Oct. 30), if you're flying US Airways from Pittsburgh to any one of a large number of small airports in the Northeast (such as Bangor, Maine; Bar Harbor, Maine; Hartford, Conn; or New Haven, Conn., to name just a few), fares have increased tremendously in this same period (2000 to 2009).

"PPG Breaks Ground on Resins Plant in China" (Oct. 22) caught my eye. Somehow I missed news of the first 13 plants that this Pittsburgh-based corporation built in China, but this was the 14th.

Can a manufacturing base ever be restored here? Or are we to simply resign ourselves to the fact that for many unemployed Americans, the answer is welcoming customers at their local Wal-Mart, which sells many of the Chinese-made products that we once manufactured?

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