Affordable Care Act essential for me
In 2010, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which led to a diagnosis of Cushing’s disease. Taken together, these diagnoses required extensive surgery, and I was scared that a major surgery like that would possibly end my life, or change the way I live altogether.
Complications followed, which led to another surgery to remove my adrenal glands, and I have just recently been given notice for a third surgery later this year.
I am sincerely grateful to be alive today, and these lifesaving treatments and surgeries could not have happened without my ability to have access to my current health insurance. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I can’t be denied coverage for my preexisting condition.
If Sen. Martha McSally could have it her way, by eliminating protections for those with preexisting conditions, I’d be in a terrible financial situation and would have to choose between paying rent or paying for my health-care costs.
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Arizonans have to know the stakes of health-care decisions made in Washington, and we have to hold our representatives, like McSally, accountable for saying she’d protect our health care. Clearly, she will not.
Alicia Held
North side
No bailout
for cruise lines
The cruise industry licenses their ships in other countries to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Last year they rewarded their shareholders with $1.8 billion in profits and reinvested $900 million in stock buybacks. They don’t need our assistance financially. They’re doing just fine.
Pam Farris
Oro Valley
Gun deaths exceed COVID-19 deaths
The CDC reported that there have been 423 cases of COVID-19 with 19 deaths in the United States as of March 9. This is not an insignificant number of deaths and may significantly increase, or not, based on what we do as a country. In comparison, the Gun Violence Archive reported that there have been 7,305 deaths due to gun violence since Jan. 1 with 189 of the deaths in children less than 18 years of age; 2,751 of these deaths were from homicides, murders, unintentional shootings and defensive gun use and 4,554 of these deaths were from suicides.
However, our government consistently fails to act and mobilize with the same vigor to reduce deaths due to gun violence compared with its current effort to decrease death from COVID-19. Just imagine how we could reduce deaths from gun violence if we mobilized with the same national effort to eliminate guns as a vehicle for death.
Douglas Taren
West side
Reasons to vote Democrat
As a longtime voter who lives in Armory Park, I thank the Democratic Party for an eight-hour work day, paid overtime, disability and unemployment insurance, child labor and work safety laws. And for now, guaranteed health insurance despite preexisting conditions.
We have Medicaid, Head Start, school lunch programs and home loan assistance. We have FEMA for disasters, the CDC to prevent the spread of disease and FDA for food and drug safety. We have laws to protect our right to vote.
We need programs for better pandemic preparedness, income inequality, wage stagnation, college affordability, universal health care, international isolation and the very viability of the planet.
As for fiscal irresponsibility, remember this. Reagan doubled the deficit to $152.5 billion. H.W. Bush’s went to $255 billion. Clinton dropped it to zero, but G.W. Bush pushed it back up to $1.41 trillion. Obama cut that in half to $584.5 billion. Now Trump’s deficit will be close to $1 trillion in 2020.
Bill Brennan
Downtown
Trump, not Biden, can reignite economy
The novel coronavirus is creating worldwide economic chaos with economies slowing and stock markets tumbling. Add to that the oil production war between Russia and Saudi Arabia causing oil prices to plummet. The coronavirus will likely spread further globally for months to come. Once the virus has subsided, who could better get our economy rolling again, Trump or Biden?
We just had an outstanding February jobs report (270,000 jobs created), the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% and wages increased. But our economic growth will slow in coming months because of the virus. Donald Trump has demonstrated that he can create a robust economy. So what about Joe Biden?
He wants to reverse the corporate tax cuts from 21% to 35%. He wants to impose CO2 emissions taxes on domestic manufacturers and “carbon adjustment fees” on foreign exporters who use fossil fuels to manufacture their products.
You think this will stimulate the economy? Maybe Biden will stimulate the economy with his mandatory government buy back of millions of legally purchased ARs?
Aida Reed
Midtown
Coronavirus
is worse than the flu
Re: the March 10 article “Time for a little perspective about immediate health threats.”
The op-ed by a health-care executive takes a pretty cavalier attitude toward the deadliness of the virus.
He compares 22 virus deaths to 40,000 gunshot deaths which is like comparing apples to oranges. He says that out of 29 million cases of the regular flu 16,000 died (or about 0.055%).
Actually, the CDC estimate for the period stretching from Oct. 1, 2019, to Feb. 29 of this year, is 20,000 to 52,000 deaths in 34 million to 49 million cases which, in the worst-case scenario is 0.15%. So far, with limited statistics, there have been 22 deaths in 1,000 cases (2.2%) in the U.S. from the coronavirus (as of Monday, March 9). The preliminary death rates for coronavirus seem to be 15 to 20 times higher than ordinary flu.
For seniors like me, it is even higher.
John Kuisti
West side
Money can’t buy happiness, better roads
Just so you know, the roads everywhere are terrible and seldom repaired. Washington state has one of the highest gas taxes in the nation and their roads are not any better than roads in Tucson. The roads in Seattle should be 14-karat gold.
Your government will scream about taxing you and promising the tax will fix the roads. I forewarn you they will take the money and fix nothing, somehow the money will go elsewhere. Do not vote for this, you will just pay more for gas, you will be sorry.
Calvin Graedel
North side
AZ senators can put stop to Trump’s cruelty
As a person of faith, I urge Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Martha McSally to stop funding the administration’s inhumane and cruel policies that are dismantling the asylum system, and instead restore and strengthen it by cosponsoring the Refugee Protection Act and the Asylum Seeker Protection Act.
I am outraged by the administration’s Migration Protection Protocols and the Asylum Cooperative Agreements, forcibly returning people to so-called “safe third countries” where they continue to face harm, as well as the PACR & HARP courts that violate due process. My community welcomes asylum seekers and immigrants and I urge my nation to do the same.
Donna Johnson
East side
Cancel the Fourth Avenue Street Fair
I am not an alarmist. I am not stock piling items, but I am taking certain precautions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. I applaud the NBA for canceling games and the NCAA for stopping fans. So why, oh why, are we allowing the street fair in Tucson to continue.
I love the fair, but with vendors coming in from all surrounding states and the thousands of people who will attend, we are asking for a large outbreak. We have been lucky so far in Pima County and we know more is coming but why are we tempting fate. Is the revenue the fair brings in worth peoples’ lives?
Patricia Pulidio
East side
