Supports health care reform
To the editor:

I applaud Karen Awad’s “Disagrees with Horner health care assessment,” published May 1 in the Osceola News-Gazette. Horner’s tirade against the health care reform bill was so full of distortion and falsehoods it was difficult to read.

Because of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) passed by Congress in 1986, hospitals are required to see all patients who come to the emergency room requesting medical evaluation and treatment. It doesn’t matter if they can’t pay or if they’re illegal aliens, they cannot be denied care. It’s the law.

EMTALA guarantees health care for everybody, but it’s expensive. This creates cost shifting, which results in higher rates for those who are insured or pay out of pocket. This is a major factor in the overall rate of medical inflation. Medical insurance premiums have gone up and my deductible has gone up as well partially because of this problem. Too many uninsured being treated with no ability to pay, raising the price for those who do pay. That’s why I support mandatory health insurance or a penalty like what’s in the health care reform bill.

I urge people to become informed based on the facts about this health care reform, as did Awad. The more you know about it, the less you’ll be against it. Quit listening to people like Horner who doesn’t back up his opinions with reality. The system cannot continue without reform. The reform bill is not perfect and needs fine-tuning, but overall it’s a step in the right direction.

Horner has shown that I made a mistake voting for him and he should be a one-term legislator. His voting yes for an increase in car tag registrations during high unemployment and recession is another reason to vote him out of office later this year.

Eric H. Phelps
St. Cloud

Traffic problems
To the editor:

Traffic citation dollars could be the key to government financial problems. Maybe the solution is too simple to understand, but as an accountant, I know numbers don’t lie, people do.

Your paper ran an article April 24 regarding a “safety check,” which was conducted April 7, at Lakeshore Boulevard and Wyoming Avenue that resulted in 38 citations yielding over $4,294 in revenue. If we did this four times per day at various locations throughout Osceola County (and you know it needs to be done), we could potentially be billing out $17,000 per day in revenues, $510,000 per month. Why is this not standard operating procedure?

Osceola County doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a traffic law enforcement problem. I am tired of driving to work each day and encouraging one of two scenarios – almost hit by someone running a red light or someone talking on a cell phone that comes into my lane of traffic. Does anyone care about this but me?

Terri Lowe
Kissimmee