2/4 Letters: It’s time to talk about state employee pensions.

NC retirees’ COLA

A cost of living adjustment for state and local retirees isn’t a flashy, headline issue. But for our state’s more then 300,000 government retirees and the communities they live in, keeping pensions “healthy” with COLAs not only maintains quality of life for the retiree, but also provides economic impact in their local communities.

Public sector retirees contribute $6.9 billion annually to our state’s economy. While our teachers and state government retirees have received a modest but consistent adjustment the past few years, our local government retirees have had less than one percent adjustment — over ten years’ time — an unacceptable fact that is hurting North Carolinians. Our state also reaps what it sows when providing adequate adjustments for retirees. Public sector retirees pay back $1.4 billion in federal, state, and local taxes.

Remember, a pension is a promise, not a gift. We told our public sector workers that they would earn retirement through their time serving their state or local community.

It’s time we keep that promise.

Richard Rogers

Executive Director, NC Retired Government Employees Association

Raleigh

Voting bill

I am a constituent of Representative Butterfield from NC and urge him to support HR1, the election reform bill that will be introduced when Congress comes back into session in January. This bill would help ensure that every eligible citizen is able to vote by establishing automatic voter registration. It would also reduce the impact of big donors on politics and would require paper ballots. It also limits partisan gerrymandering, which has been a huge problem here in North Carolina. HR1 would go a long way toward restoring faith in our elections. I urge my elected officials to pass this bill.

Christiane Voisin

Durham

Sufficient reimbursement

I must take issue to the letter writer criticizing “Medicare for all.” I have no idea where he gets Medicare reimbursement at 10 percent. The truth is, Medicare reimbursement is less than private insurers but certainly reasonable. I practiced urology for 33 years in Raleigh. As I got older, my patients did too, so by the time I retired I was seeing 85 to 90 percent Medicare patients. Our entire practice saw 65 percent Medicare patients because of the nature of a urology practice. We did not shut down and made a very reasonable income.

If Medicare for all occurred, there would be a huge savings because of the decrease in supporting staff to handle all the different insurers. With Medicare, I knew what I would be paid and filing for reimbursement was much easier than filing for private insurers. In fact, it would cut down on the time and expense and hoops to jump through to get tests and care for our patients.

I have a plan to pay for it. Instead of companies paying for private insurance, let there be a fee that all companies contribute for health care. This will include all those companies who don’t pay for health care and rely on social structures such as Medicaid, which we all pay for, to provide care for their employees. They have been taking advantage of the system for too long. I suspect that corporations that now provide benefits would pay less than they do now.

Richard Kane M.D.

Raleigh

Stay out of it

Direct U.S. intervention in Latin America is a very old and very tragic story. Now here we are, apparently preparing for the next one. I mean, we are already intervening in Venezuela’s politics, supporting an internal coup; but now even a military intervention is under consideration. Another of National Security Adviser John Bolton’s dreams.

Yes, Maduro’s government is corrupt, but that is not the issue here. Bolton and CO. are not that principled. Our history of supporting corrupt repressive governments in Latin America - the ones that serve our interests rather than oppose them - is as old as the Monroe Doctrine.

Gail Phares

Raleigh

Tough love

Professor Megan Neely should be commended for telling students what they needed to hear instead of telling them what they wanted to hear. As a software developer in New York, I attended a technology school run by Russian immigrants predominantly for Russian immigrants but taught in English. The teachers, also Russian with decades of work experience in the United States, tried to impress upon their audience that success in their chosen field would be predicated as much on their communication skills as their technical ones. They couldn’t have been more correct. While Duke may feel vindicated today for its sensitivity, lots of luck explaining away a derailed career in 20 or 30 years based on limited language skills.