Letters to the editor
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The Nov. 22 story by Daniel Malloy and Dennis Roddy " 'War on Coal' Pits Miners Against Environmentalists" does a great job of describing the benefits we receive from coal as well as outlining the costs to both the environment and to individuals of coal mining. The battle between coal miners who want to hang onto their jobs and environmentalists who want to limit coal mining to protect the environment seems an unsolvable conflict, but wind energy could be the solution.
West Virginia has some of the best terrain in America for developing wind energy. Why not use the mountain tops of West Virginia as platforms for wind turbines instead of destroying them with mountain-top mining? Once the coal is gone, the jobs will be gone too, but the wind is forever. Building, erecting and maintaining wind turbines can create high-paying blue-collar jobs that will outlast coal.
West Virginia also has an advantage in being close to the energy-hungry market of the Washington, D.C., metro area. If West Virginia exploits the wind, it can keep its mountains and keep the jobs needed for coal miners to make a decent living by mining the wind instead of coal.
BOB PODURGIEL
Carnegie
Fund adultBasic
This February, more than 42,000 Pennsylvania citizens could lose their health insurance if steps are not taken immediately to renew funding for adultBasic, Pennsylvania's low-cost health insurance program for adults.
For the past eight years, adultBasic has been funded through tobacco settlement money and contributions from the four Pennsylvania Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance programs, which used adultBasic to fulfill their charitable contributions. However, as the Nov. 26 editorial "Keep 'Em Covered" reports, the four Blue Cross/Blue Shield health insurance companies have not kept their part of the agreement, and this year have skipped payments totaling $29 million. Due to this funding shortage, adultBasic will likely run out of money soon into the New Year, and tens of thousands of our neighbors will lose their health insurance.
Additionally, the 464,000 residents on the adultBasic waiting list will lose all hope of obtaining insurance through this program. The majority will be unable to purchase private health insurance due to the staggering price tag of these plans, which means that Pennsylvania's uninsured rate will rise substantially and 42,625 people will be added overnight to the 1.3 million PA residents already without insurance.
First Published December 14, 2010 12:00 am
