LETTERS: Heck’s immigration stance LOL-funny

To the editor:

After reading about Rep. Joe Heck defending his vote on the DREAM act, I almost laughed out loud (“Heck defends DREAMers vote,” Aug. 5 Review-Journal). Rep. Heck said he couldn’t do a “bait-and-switch” on those children who were brought here by their parents. “They have become members of our society,” he said.

If any of these kids or their families believe that if re-elected, Rep. Heck will lead his fellow House members as a champion of immigration reform, they will be totally disappointed. That is when you will see Rep. Heck’s biggest switch, back to joining fellow House Republicans in blocking any meaningful immigration legislation.

I also found it hilarious that he blamed the border problem on President Barack Obama’s “patchwork” fix by executive orders, while Rep. Heck favored fixing it “one piece (patch) at a time.” As usual, he didn’t mention what piece he would fix first.

Like all good comics, Rep. Heck saved his best material for a big finish, saying the House took action on the border issue at the last possible moment before recess because Republicans felt duty-bound to do something to address the issue. Really? House Republicans had a whole year to act on a comprehensive bill passed by the Senate, yet chose to take a meaningless vote minutes before going on an extended vacation. I’ll hold my applause and just give him a hearty laugh.

JOE VAN RHYN

LAS VEGAS

Obama a good leader

To the editor:

President Barack Obama is taking a beating in the polls because he is perceived as too slow to lead. I disagree. When Americans twice elected George W. Bush, the shoot-from-the-hip cowboy who would be king, he was perceived as tough and decisive. Is that really what we wanted in a president, even though he lacked the intellectual curiosity and prowess necessary to make good decisions?

Barack Obama has clearly demonstrated his ability to lead America while making good, sound decisions and judgment calls, without the cowboy-king attitude. Now if we could just elect people to Congress who have these same desirable attributes.

RICHARD RYCHTARIK

LAS VEGAS

Health care choice

To the editor:

For the past 5½ years, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have pushed policies that have, in their simplest form, come down to this: if you support the policies, you are voting money out of one person’s pocket and into another’s.

Obamacare is the example. This program might have provided a form of health insurance to those who did not previously have it, but in many cases, it caused others to lose their coverage. This is an undeniable fact. We who have paid for our coverage for years now find ourselves with no options, unless we want to give all of our information to a government health care exchange. If we choose not to, we will be penalized, eventually to the point where the penalty will exceed the cost of purchasing a policy through the exchange.

It sounds like the end result is a single-payer system. This was President Obama’s intent from the beginning. It seems to me that health care choice is only an option when it comes to terminating a pregnancy. Have you had enough liberalism yet?

MIKE BRYANT

LAS VEGAS

Don’t privatize VA

To the editor:

I have seen numerous letters regarding privatizing the Veterans Affairs health system. Some have said that this would increase competition and provide better care for veterans. This may be true, but at what price?

My wife recently had parathyroid surgery at Summerlin Hospital. The gland removed was roughly the size of a grain of rice, and it took about one hour to remove it. The cost was more than $42,000, not including doctor’s fees. My wife was in the hospital for one day.

There are 2.9 million disabled veterans in the United States. They schedule in the neighborhood of 100 million appointments per year. My father fled Adolf Hitler’s Germany and later fought his way across France and Germany with the U.S. Army. He was treated at the Wadsworth VA in Los Angeles for many years until his death in 1995. My father was disabled and unable to drive. I used to take him to his appointments, where he was always treated with dignity and respect, and he never had to pay a dime.

The waiting times were long, but the treatment was satisfactory. The VA used state-of-the-art equipment. The treatment would probably have been better at hospitals such as UCLA or Cedars-Sinai, but the cost would have been astronomical. The VA provides care at a fraction of the cost of private hospitals in this country. Many veterans have suffered severe injuries and are in and out of hospitals for years. The private-sector hospital cost would be millions of dollars for one seriously disabled patient.

In allowing veterans to go to private hospitals, the cost going forward would be in the trillions of dollars. How many people who advocate this approach will still like it when the bills come due?

GERRY HAGEMAN

LAS VEGAS