Health care costs

State gouging its health care clients

We just received our health care statement from the Washington State Health Care Authority. Our Group Health Care dues increased by 42 percent from $155.79 to $221.43. We find this totally unacceptable.

Our Social Security benefits increased by 1.4 percent. To increase our health care costs by 42 percent is unfair, unconscionable and outrageous. It is shameful for our state government to balance their budget on the backs of senior citizens such as us. This is nothing short of extravagant price gouging. It is morally corrupt and unjust.

When we talked to representatives at Group Health or the Washington State HCA they say that all health care costs are rising dramatically. Does that make it right? Of course not. There has to be a different solution because what we are experiencing is runaway price gouging.

Repeatedly we are told that older people are using more health care services. We use it as little as possible and should not be punished for the needs of others. That is very unfair. We are therefore asking that our increase be no more that 15 percent. This means that we would be paying $179.16 in place of the phenominal amount of $221.43 per month.

Both our state and federal governments have to place a priority on reducing these escalting costs. We need drastic health care reform in our country. The current condition cannot go on anymore. It is already way out of balance in proportion to other rising costs.

We are a part of several senior citizens’ organizations and will actively work to unseat any elected official who is a part of this year’s budget. We do not mean to be “buffaloed” again.

ANNETTE GROSS

JACOB GROSS

Edmonds

Animal control

Spaying, neutering are compassionate

I am writing in response to the Feb. 14 cartoon showing an unhappy dog wearing diapers.

The implication is that this dog’s quality of life is very poor because he has been altered, in compliance with Edmonds’ new spay/neuter ordinance, which states that animals coming through the city of Edmonds animal control, either as strays or surrenders, must be altered before being adopted.

King County adopted a similar policy 10 years ago. PAWS, a Lynnwood-based animal advocacy organization, estimates that this move saved the lives of 30,000 animals, plus 2.3 million dollars in sheltering costs.

Here are some more compelling reasons why spay/neuter policies are kinder for all of us, people and pets:

• The Humane Society of the United States estimates the number of cats and dogs entering shelters in the U.S. each year to be between 8 million and 10 million, with four to five million of those animals being euthanized.

• Shelter workers must deal with the trauma of euthanizing the discarded creatures they care about, often at great personal cost.

• Altering pets can reduce many of the behavioral problems that land them in shelters, such as biting, marking and wandering.

The most compassionate course of action is to socialize and train our animals so they can function well in human society, and to alter them so that the cycle of abandonment and euthanasia can be broken once and for all. When more people make the choice to alter their pets, fewer healthy, adoptable companion animals will end their lives with the prick of a needle.

BLYTHE A. HORMAN

Edmonds

Foreign policy

United Nations is our hidden enemy

As America prepares to defend our safety against Islamic terrorists and mad dictators bent on our destruction, there is a force operating right on American soil that is not only dangerous to our homeland security, but to our independent governmental authority and to our Constitutional rights.

It’s the United Nations, headquartered in New York City. Led by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the U.N. provides a public forum and diplomatic immunity for gross human-rights violators such as Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat, and the leaders of Communist China and North Korea. The U.N. recognizes as members such terrorists and terrorist-sponsoring nations as Iraq, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, and Libya.

The power-mad U.N. provides a worldwide public platform for enemy nations to spew anti-American speeches. These fanatics have shown their determination to exert their control over American society and our constitutional rights through their globalist treaties.

If the U.N. has no plans to ever establish a global “one-world” government, a denied by their leaders, then why did they establish a Commission on Global Governance with authority over every nation, including America? A revealing look at the inner workings of the U.N., its dark ties to communism, and its true global agenda show that the U.N. plans for an independent global standing army that will allow it to send troops into any nation on earth at a moment’s notice.

The U.N. has already placed American troops under foreign U.N. commanders in bloody “peace-keeping” ventures, as it did under the Clinton/Gore administration in Bosnia and Somalia, where American troops serving under U.N. control were slaughtered and their lifeless bodies dragged through the streets.

Unfortunately, very few Americans were informed about the United Nations as our “hidden enemy.”

DON KANE

Mountlake Terrace

Mill Creek signs

City needs an officer

to enforce the code

When I was running for a City Council position I often heard from small business owners that they were thinking about leaving Mill Creek because of the restrictive nature of our advertising codes. Now, after serving on the Business Sign Review Committee, being involved in the Mill Creek Planning Commission’s work session and then the public hearing on this topic, I am very familiar with our citizens and our business owners concerns about signage.

I believe we Planning Commissioners, in conjunction with the city staff, have finally developed some positive changes in our antiquated sign codes. If our changes are accepted by our City Council and if the local business owners will use our city signs codes as they are written, then all of us in Mill Creek will become involved in a win-win situation.

Along with these changes, I believe our City Council should budget for a sign code enforcement agent. As it now stands, the minority of our small business owners who are violating our sign codes are the winners. This is due to the fact that they are not being cited for their infractions.

Thus those who do conform to our city standards are at a disadvantage since nothing is happening to those who are deliberately violating our ordinances. We need to reward those who following our codes by punishing those who violate our statutes. And the best way to do this is to have a paid city sign agent so that these illegal signs will come down. By doing this, we will help our legal businesses as will as help our community by eliminating those flourishing prohibited eyesores, which are going up throughout our beautiful city.

CHUCK WRIGHT

Mill Creek

Health care costs

State gouging its health care clients

We just received our health care statement from the Washington State Health Care Authority. Our Group Health Care dues increased by 42 percent from $155.79 to $221.43. We find this totally unacceptable.

Our Social Security benefits increased by 1.4 percent. To increase our health care costs by 42 percent is unfair, unconscionable and outrageous. It is shameful for our state government to balance their budget on the backs of senior citizens such as us. This is nothing short of extravagant price gouging. It is morally corrupt and unjust.

When we talked to representatives at Group Health or the Washington State HCA they say that all health care costs are rising dramatically. Does that make it right? Of course not. There has to be a different solution because what we are experiencing is runaway price gouging.

Repeatedly we are told that older people are using more health care services. We use it as little as possible and should not be punished for the needs of others. That is very unfair. We are therefore asking that our increase be no more that 15 percent. This means that we would be paying $179.16 in place of the phenominal amount of $221.43 per month.

Both our state and federal governments have to place a priority on reducing these escalting costs. We need drastic health care reform in our country. The current condition cannot go on anymore. It is already way out of balance in proportion to other rising costs.

We are a part of several senior citizens’ organizations and will actively work to unseat any elected official who is a part of this year’s budget. We do not mean to be “buffaloed” again.

ANNETTE GROSS

JACOB GROSS

Edmonds

Foreign policy

United Nations is

our hidden enemy

As America prepares to defend our safety against Islamic terrorists and mad dictators bent on our destruction, there is a force operating right on American soil that is not only dangerous to our homeland security, but to our independent governmental authority and to our Constitutional rights.

It’s the United Nations, headquartered in New York City. Led by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the U.N. provides a public forum and diplomatic immunity for gross human-rights violators such as Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat, and the leaders of Communist China and North Korea. The U.N. recognizes as members such terrorists and terrorist-sponsoring nations as Iraq, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, and Libya.

The power-mad U.N. provides a worldwide public platform for enemy nations to spew anti-American speeches. These fanatics have shown their determination to exert their control over American society and our constitutional rights through their globalist treaties.

If the U.N. has no plans to ever establish a global “one-world” government, a denied by their leaders, then why did they establish a Commission on Global Governance with authority over every nation, including America? A revealing look at the inner workings of the U.N., its dark ties to communism, and its true global agenda show that the U.N. plans for an independent global standing army that will allow it to send troops into any nation on earth at a moment’s notice.

The U.N. has already placed American troops under foreign U.N. commanders in bloody “peace-keeping” ventures, as it did under the Clinton/Gore administration in Bosnia and Somalia, where American troops serving under U.N. control were slaughtered and their lifeless bodies dragged through the streets.

Unfortunately, very few Americans were informed about the United Nations as our “hidden enemy.”

DON KANE

Mountlake Terrace