Traverse City Record-Eagle

Your Views

March 25, 2012

Letters to the editor: 03/25/2012

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Bargaining a safeguard

Collective bargaining is the only safeguard workers have against corporate greed.

After the 2008 economic meltdown, it should be clear to everyone now that Wall Street, big banks and corporate raiders have no qualms about sacrificing ordinary Americans if it pads their profits.

Now, Lansing politicians are selling out Michigan's middle class families by taking an ax to our rights to collective bargaining.

Remove collective bargaining, and we may as well say goodbye to our jobs and to the middle class that all of us aspire to.

Allyson McBride-Culver

Interlochen

We're in this together

Lower health-care costs could be obtained simply, without mandates or tax increases. The process could begin overnight. Here are just a few examples:

Make the tax rules the same for both individuals and employers.

Let individuals deduct 100 percent of insurance premiums on their tax return like employers do.

Let employers choose what coverage they want to purchase. Currently the government mandates expensive employer coverage, such as maternity benefits, no matter your gender or age.

Remove restrictions on buying insurance out of state to allow for competition on prices nationwide.

Ease government out of the health-care business over the next 25 years. As an alternative, use fundraisers to create private pools for those who are uninsurable and underinsured due to serious or chronic illness and who represent a minority of the population. There is not enough money in the country to pay everyone for everything.

Promote health savings accounts to encourage self-responsibility.

For those whose current financial condition will not allow them to buy insurance, local health clinics could be further funded to provide services.

We are all in this together. The problems can be fixed peacefully, affordably and openly, while keeping our personal freedoms intact.

Bonnie Soper

Traverse City

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