LETTERS: Guest worker provision hurts American citizens

To the editor:

The case made against raising the minimum wage by the Review-Journal in its Sunday editorial, “Boosting minimum wage will make matters worse,” was powerful and irrefutable. There is no doubt whatsoever that suffering unemployed and underemployed Americans would be faced with fewer job openings if the minimum wage were raised.

But it was unfortunate that the Review-Journal did not mention the titanic struggle now being waged in Washington, D.C., by business special interests to incorporate a foreign “guest worker” provision into a possible landmark immigration reform bill. A vote on this is supposedly going to happen sometime in March or April.

My question to the Review-Journal’s editorial board, as well as to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican House Speaker John Boehner, is this: How does importing hundreds of thousands of guest workers not hurt unemployed Americans who are searching for scarce jobs, and how does it not depress the wages of Americans who are working?

LARRY BROWN

NORTH LAS VEGAS

Nevada exchange

To the editor:

I listened to the Board of Directors for the Nevada Health Insurance Exchange meeting earlier this month, and I learned a few things.

The exchange paid an expert contractor to design, build and run the call center to help us obtain Obamacare-compliant health care policies. The consultants said they knew in December their call volume was going to double, so they hired 50 more people who started to work the phones in January. The consultants run some of the largest call centers in the U.S. and they still underestimated by at least 66 percent the number of people they needed to work the phones, which caused Nevadans wait times of up to 90 minutes to talk to someone and get help. I think I learned that the original required time limit to answer the phone (written by the consultants) was within two or three minutes. I also learned the consultants did not make any mistakes, the government gave them wrong data, and the consultants could not figure out it was wrong.

I learned that one navigator group had to schedule two or three meetings with people who wanted to sign up because the system did not and still does not work correctly.

I learned that the Nevada exchange in its advertising said that citizens could enroll by phone. They cannot. I learned that the exchange encouraged nonprofit organizations to make promises to their groups that they could enroll by phones. Some of the people in those organizations seemed embarrassed for having made such promises.

I learned that we should never have expected the exchange to work because these things always take time to work, although it was seldom mentioned when the exchange wasn’t working, while officials continued to push this flawed program.

I learned that the exchange set up special units to enroll citizens in Medicaid. I also learned that at least one of these units charges a fee. They are now charging a fee to the very people who can least afford to get health insurance.

BOB KENNEDY

LAS VEGAS

Unaffordable Care Act

To the editor:

Let me see if I have this correct: The Affordable Care Act is touted as being less expensive than previous health care options. If that is the case, then my monthly premium should be a lot less than previous premiums. So let’s crunch some numbers.

Suppose I pay a premium of $150 per month, which is $1,800 annually, and I have a $5,000 deductible, which means if I had an injury or sickness, I will have to pay out $6,800 before the ACA-compliant plan begins to pick up any cost; my amortized outlay will now be $567 monthly.

I have three passports, from Great Britain, Canada and the United States, which means I have experienced the health care of two countries and am about to experience the health care of another one. I can tell you without hesitation you are about to experience a cost that will astound you, and guess who pays for it? Why, you of course, through direct and indirect taxation, which means less money in your pocket to achieve the American dream, which I can see is fading fast.

When that happens, and you are looking around for someone to blame, try pointing a finger in the direction it belongs: the Obama administration and all the Democrats who voted for the ACA (although none of them read it). Then go ahead and elect another slate of Democrats in 2014, because after all, they give away free stuff. In God we trust, because there is no one else in whom we can.

JOHN NEWBERY

LAS VEGAS

Arm-band ID program

To the editor:

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, in her State of the City speech, brought up the idea of having the Las Vegas Fire Department develop an arm-band identification program (“Mayor highlights downtown,” Jan. 10 Review-Journal). When I am going out of my house without my purse, I wear a Velcro bracelet with a metal plate that has my identification, along with emergency contact information that would allow my identity to be verified, leading to treatment I might need and notification of my family.

It is my responsibility to wear the bracelet when such information might be needed.

I see no reason why the Fire Department or any other government agency should be required to put in place another program to do what I can easily do for myself. I am not indentiphobic; the possibility that information might be needed trumps whatever privacy issues might arise. Securing a bracelet on one’s own is no more onerous than registering with a governmental agency. Any reader can investigate what technology makes possible by accessing RoadID.com.

JOYCE BRINK

LAS VEGAS