Letters to the Editor

Enough fearmongering

Mr. Caudle wrote a letter last week in Friday's paper that, if you didn't know the truth, seemed frightening.

He well knows that NO ONE is asking to limit current well owner's allotment. What I actually did was to turn over the idea of "future" wells to be limited. But since we, as a county commission, do not have the authority to do it, we sent it back to the state. (Indeed I do not believe there are enough votes to support any limit on current domestic wells.)

Let's try to be clear on this, and I will say it again, all five of your elected county commissioners are well owners. Why would we limit our own water?

Also the idea that we will, "require a meter on every domestic well" is just not true. Again the truth has been distorted to drive up fear and support for doing nothing. This part was also sent to the state engineer for future wells not current well owners.

Passing these items back to the state, that has the authority, was not done to give him anything but questions. My motion was to pass it back to him for his opinion, not support. (If you look deeper.)

The main part of my motion was to get all the data filled in and water, septic, and general education on these issues started by the Water District Governing Board. Why do they fear that?

So to Mr. Caudle and the others driving this debate by fear please stop it. Let's work together to get a handle of ALL of the water issues facing us.

I will not answer point by point because as you can see the other side of this debate just will not pass on accurate information and seem only to want to cause fear. Whatever your elected board of commissioners do decide we will have to live with it too.

Lastly, we have to make a decision about this issue without favoring any one side. This we try to do on every issue and it makes it much harder to do when groups out there continue to pass on misinformation.

Dan Schinhofen is in his second term serving on the Nye County commission.

How Republicans failed America on health care

Perhaps no greater example exists on the hypocrisy of Republicans claiming they want to eliminate waste than that of allowing ObamaCare to function under its present system. For the past two years Republicans have controlled both houses in our federal government and have done absolutely nothing to bring down the costs of health care, especially under ObamaCare, but they have attempted to totally eliminate ObamaCare at least fifty times.

Anyone who follows the national news knows that ObamaCare is too expensive and that costs could be reduced significantly. So, why haven't the Republicans tried to reduce health care costs for Americans? Answer: When you are a whore in Congress taking payoff money for waste which benefits some corporations then you can't bite the hands that feeds you. For example, multi billions could be saved in prescription costs if Medicare were allowed to negotiate the cost of drugs with the pharmaceutical companies. National polls show that 74 percent of Republicans want this. People who live close to the Canadian and Mexican borders frequently drive into those two nations and purchase drugs as low as 20 cents on the dollar when compared to prices in America.

Please allow me to burst the widely-held Republican myth that private enterprise can always deliver less costly benefits to Americans than government. No better example exists than health care delivered by our military (part of government.) There are no insurance companies soaking up to 40 percent of health care expenses in our military. The doctors get paid the same if they do one operation a day or ten. No bloated CEO salaries and retirement plans for insurance companies. Further, there is no incentive for a doctor to do an unnecessary surgery. There is no incentive to keep a healthy patient coming back in the military other than checkups once in a while.

Some people who read this will likely be surprised to learn that socialized health care in America is much less costly than private health care. So Republicans, which is it? Do you want to continue to live in myth land or accept reality and help us to eliminate unnecessary spending?

James Ferrell