LETTERS: Health care reform, national security
Keep down the
bean counters
In response to the letter regarding new guidelines for mammograms ["Health care by task force," Nov. 21]: Unless you are independently wealthy and pay for health care out of pocket, currently these medical decisions are not made by you, but by your insurance company.
I sure would rather have them made by panels of doctors and medical researchers attempting to decide "best practices" than by insurance company bean counters looking out for their company's bottom line.
Bernie Stein
Merrick
Patients' rights are
the first priority
The recent Associated Press poll about medical malpractice ["Poll: Curb malpractice suits," News, Nov. 20] clearly didn't poll the right people: those harmed by medical errors.
Should it be harder to hold negligent health providers accountable when they cut off the wrong leg, leave an instrument inside you, or worse? This is the sort of question that should have been asked.
Tort law changes won't fix health care; neither will bargaining away people's legal rights. Health care reform should protect patients' rights.
Robert F. Danzi
Westbury
Crashing the
president's dinner It is serious that there was a breach of security at the state dinner at the White House last week ["Senators: charge the crashers," News, Nov. 30]. It is not funny that two people were able to get so close to the president and other invited guests. There should not be a reward for this couple, either with money or publicity. Theirs was a criminal act, and they should be prosecuted.
Louise Glantz
Mount Sinai
I questioned why the president and attorney general decided to hold a civilian trial for the 9/11 terrorists within New York City, and not Washington D.C. Both were targets, but Washington is the seat of our government.
Attorney General Eric Holder stated that New York was especially suited because we were well prepared to handle the security needed for the trial.
But, I thought, surely Washington was more secure than anywhere else on the planet.
Then we saw the Salahis' easy entry into the innermost circle of international elite at the White House. Holder was right. If we have to have a civil trial, better to hold it in New York City.
Neil Blam
Bay Shore
Now that it's been addressed for the hundredth time in the media, my prayer is that we will never hear the words "boy" and "balloon" in the same sentence ever again. We should pray that we never hear the names Michaele and Tareq Salahi in the same sentence, either.
Marc Comerchero
Commack
