Democrats’ proposal for ‘Medicare at 60’ is the next best thing to Medicare for All

Medicare at 60

On July 6, Democrats in the U.S. House introduced a bill that includes “Medicare at 60,” which would lower the eligibility for Medicare. I support it because it adds to traditional Medicare what was left out — dental, hearing and vision services. And as a public-spirited observer of health policy, I’m cheered by the prospect of making up to 15.7 million fellow Americans eligible for the most efficient health insurance program available in the U.S.

Those who have private, employer-based health insurance could choose to keep it, but the more who choose Medicare, the less employers would have to pay for private insurance for their employees.

The 2.4 million 60-64 year olds with expensive, non-group coverage and the 1.6 million with no insurance at all, would also benefit. And, Americans with cancer or diabetes would not have to wait until they are 65 to get care, which would save money for all of us.

Short of passing Medicare for All, Medicare at 60 is the next best thing.

Dr. Jonathan Kotch, Chapel Hill

Community college

The writers chair the Wake Tech and Durham Tech boards of trustees.

Community colleges are critical to North Carolina’s pandemic recovery, and critical to community college success are the faculty and Staff who prepare students for the workplace.

Together, Durham Tech and Wake Tech serve nearly 90,000 Triangle residents. These future graduates are in essential industries like healthcare, IT, construction, and automotive technology. But key to our success are the talented faculty and staff who prepare them.

North Carolina has the third largest community college system in the nation, but faculty salaries consistently rank near the bottom nationally. They’re also farther behind national peers in average salaries than public school teachers or UNC faculty.

As lawmakers consider important issues this legislative session, N.C. community colleges support a 7% salary increase for faculty and staff. This will help ensure that the state has the instructors to train the 700,000 students who enroll annually and to help businesses rebuild. When N.C. invests in community college educators, we are investing in our students, our future workforce, and our communities.

John Burness, Durham Tech

Jamie Thomas. Wake Tech

Medical marijuana

In 2000, my lovely wife died of cancer, leaving me to raise our 11 and 15 year-old children. Her life expectancy at diagnosis was six months, but she lived 20 months thanks to various medical trials she tried and to living in Boylan Heights, where cooked dishes would appear on the front porch along with little bags of pot in the mailbox.

Wasting away from chemo, she tried the pot which restored her appetite and vigor. Once an age-bracket winner of the Raleigh Oaks 5K, two weeks before she died she pegged a recumbent YMCA bike machine off its scale, past “Excellent.”

M.B. Hardy, Raleigh

Open a dialogue

Democrats have always described their party as a “big tent.” One way they could prove this is by opening a dialogue with disaffected Republicans, especially those who’ve been called RINOS by their own Republican Party and now face the potential threat of being primaried by the Trump wing of the party.

Why don’t Democrats simply invite these harried individuals to dialogue with them by inviting them to listen what they have to say in an open caucus forum? If they will honestly dialogue, which we have not seen publicly so far, we may open some doors to good governance.

Bill Zieger, Cary

Trash to energy

Regarding “Instead of demolishing homes, take them apart” (July 6 Opinion):

All cities and towns should be promoting this type of reuse of materials. There is a second step Wake County could take to promote deconstruction of buildings and increase recycling of all materials. The fee for depositing materials at county landfills should be doubled or tripled to bring economic viability to deconstruction and recycling.

The additional revenue could be used as seed-money to develop trash-to-energy facilities that utilize trash for creating electricity. Such facilities abound in Europe and it’s estimated they reduce the volume of landfill materials by 90%. Wake County needs to be working toward trash-to-energy facilities now before the landfills are full.

Bill Jensen, Apex

Shark fins

The writer is a senior field representative with Oceana.

With another Shark Week just behind us, it’s important to remember that sharks are in trouble.

The demand for shark fins incentivizes overfishing and shark finning, the cruel practice of removing a shark’s fins at sea and throwing the shark back, where it drowns, starves to death, or is eaten alive by other fish. Fins from as many as 73 million sharks end up in the market every year.

I call on Congress to remove the U.S. from the shark fin trade once and for all by passing the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act. We need a fin ban now.

Randy Sturgill, Wilmington

This story was originally published July 16, 2021 at 12:45 PM.