Letters, 7/20: Proud of Senate

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Regarding your editorial of July 11 about the Medicare debate in the Senate:

The “game of chicken” you refer to was about how to pay for the elimination of this fee reduction. The bill paid for this elimination of the fee reduction by reducing the amount that is paid to insurance companies that underwrite Medicare Advantage plans to the level that Medicare receives. Currently, they receive 13 percent more than Medicare gets. That reflects the insurers’ influence over Congress, earned by campaign contributions.

The majority of the Republicans in the Senate and the administration were against cutting the extra amount paid to insurers. The House voted for this measure overwhelmingly, but it apparently doesn’t have the kind of loyalty to insurance companies as the Senate Republicans have.

The Republicans were successful in killing this bill by one vote before the July Fourth recess because the bill would have stopped this flagrant special interest provision. That prompted a massive campaign by the Democrats and by the American Medical Association to correct this vote after the recess. It even brought Ted Kennedy out of a sick bed back to Congress to vote. The push worked and the bill was passed (69 to 30).

Frankly, it was one of the more effective efforts I have seen in a long time that overcame a special interest and stopped a waste of money being sent to insurance companies.

I am very proud of the Senate — its Democrats and a good number of Republicans. Our Sen. Ben Nelson voted for the bill (actually voted to end the threatened filibuster), and our Sen. Chuck Hagel voted against it (in favor of the insurance companies’ interests).

The Lincoln Journal Star could have made many people proud of most of our folks in the Senate for a change. We haven’t had many moments like the vote July 9.

Bert Peterson, Hastings

Go inside to order

In regard to the McDonald’s lawsuit by Karen Tumeh (LJS, July 16):

I, too, am hearing-impaired. I have zero hearing in my right ear and very little in my left ear. I wear a hearing aid for profound hearing loss.

Like you, if I were to order from the order placement box, my hearing aid would screech, or to put it bluntly, it becomes static. If I were to turn my hearing aid off to place an order, I would not be able to hear the person taking the order, nor would I hear any type of noise, period.

Fast-food restaurants are just that, they take orders and get them out fast. Common sense should be put to use here. Park your car, walk inside and place your order, just like every other hearing-impaired person.

I also communicate by reading lips, and I can tell if the person waiting on me has not gotten the order right, just by seeing what they say, which you wouldn’t be able to do at the window.

F. Eloise Dunn, Beatrice

Stop JBS merger

At the Cattlemen’s midyear meeting in Lincoln, the keynote speaker was Wesley Batista, president and CEO of JBS Swift & Company. We were not able to attend, but I hope my fellow Nebraska Cattlemen asked some of the tough questions of Batista I wanted to ask.

JBS Swift, the Brazilian meatpacker, has announced its intention to buy National Beef and the Smithfield Beef Group. If this deal is approved, three meatpacking companies will control at least 73 percent of the daily beef processing capacity in the United States. By itself, JBS Swift will control at least 31 percent of that capacity.  And that’s not all — in planning to buy Smithfield’s Five Rivers Ranch Cattle Feeding operation, JBS Swift would become the largest cattle feeder in the country. When is enough enough?

If approved, the merger will result in less competition, less market access and lower prices for small farmers and ranchers. The values that emanate from Nebraska family farms, ranches and rural communities are of no concern to a transnational meatpacker like JBS. What will this merger mean for the economic and social health of our small towns? What will it mean for the preservation of our natural resources?

Do we want to see all of our cattle produced in feedlots owned or controlled by transnational meatpackers? Or do we want to see our cattle produced on small, dispersed family farms and ranches? Family farms and ranches have shown time and again that they are more efficient and can compete with giant industrial operations, but not if they lack market access and could face market manipulation from meatpackers.

These mergers should be stopped. I hope others will visit www.cfra.org/JBS and tell the Justice Department to stop the JBS merger.

Elisha Greeley Smith, Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons

Demand smart energy plan

Observing a peaceful blue ball from their Apollo spacecraft window, one of the astronauts commented, “There’s a nice Earth out tonight.”

Will our children be able to say the same? Nuclear waste and global warming are real climactic dangers that will be with us for generations; more drilling is popular but just one more desperate dead-end idea we will hand off to our children. And they will have less time to find real answers. Oil will not last; melting polar ice and warming oceans will.

Americans called to sacrifice have always stepped up, but honest leadership is required. A blend of conservation and new technologies would suffice today, but with a new goal: to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels quickly. It is not a decision that will be supported by the automobile industry, the oil companies and this president, but they must decide to contribute to a solution or remain part of the problem.

With a change in priorities, we could redirect trillions of dollars from endless wars trying to secure oil reserves to technologies at home that create safe, clean, affordable energy and jobs for Americans.

This administration has moved from a poor energy policy to a worse one based on greed and politics. For ourselves and future generations, we should demand an intelligent, responsible energy plan. It’s a change waiting to happen.

Steven D. Burbach, Lincoln

Church was polarized

On June 28, the Journal Star wrote an article on the closing of All Saints Lutheran Church.

After spending almost 30 years at the church, I saw more than a style of ministry for the closing of the church. The church was polarized by differences of opinion on human sexuality. Five or six members made the decision to use what I would consider to be un-Christian practices to support their theories, which eventually led to Pastor Leon Rosenthal leaving the church and the church being placed on probation by the synod.

I sincerely regret the circumstances of the closing of the church.

Mike Palmer, Lincoln