Letters to the Editor: Medicare for All; pray to fight climate change
Labor Day solidarity and Medicare for All
On Labor Day 2022, numerous labor Unions across the Northwest Ohio Region marched in Toledo in the annual Labor Day parade. This is a great sign of solidarity for workers in Ohio and something to not take for granted. The benefits that all workers have come with a price.
Throughout history, labor unions and the workers who have formed labor unions have put their lives on the line and have been killed for the rights of workers by people such as Pinkerton militia, company soldiers and the National Guard. Some of the examples and greatest results for workers involved even women and children of strikers being killed under the order of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes from Fremont during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Strikers were killed during the textile mill uprising of 1934. Two Memphis sanitation workers and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., died during the Memphis Sanitation Worker Strike of 1968.
One of the biggest obstacles for union workers at contract time is the cost of health care. The middle class cannot continue to pay for the uninsured and Medicaid recipients with higher costs and premiums and cannot continue to pay for the rich by making contractual concessions to pay for corporate welfare so they can increase shareholder value. The only sensible solution is Medicare for All. Many businesses no longer want to cover 100% of medical expenses and shift expenses to the employees. With Medicare for All, both sides make out. Workers make out by cost effective Medicare and the company makes out by not having to provide health insurance.
James Blum, Plymouth
Pray instead of spending money on climate change
The federal government just passed an enormous spending bill. Included in this bill is $370 billion for climate change. Scientists estimate global temperature reduction purchased with this money will be at best a drop of 28/1000 degree Fahrenheit. That’s .028 or rounding off is .03 or 3/100 degree F. At worst 9/10,000 (.0009) degree F.
Before criticizing a program, it seems fair to support a better or cheaper plan. Why not ask all global Christians (and like minded other religions) to pray for a reduction in global temperatures. I’m sure they would do it for free, even Christian climate change alarmists would probably help.
I don’t recall the exact numbers, but I do know they exist. Statistically, hospitalized people who are very ill recover in greater numbers when people pray for them. For that to be statistically significant (and it is), those numbers would have to be better than the climate change numbers purchased for $370 billion by taxpayers.
Loretta McBride, Mansfield
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Letters to the Editor: Medicare for All, pray to fight climate change
