LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Medicare drug plan works fine

In response to the March 21 editorial regarding Sen. Ron Wyden and the ability of the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices, here are the facts:

The hundreds of health insurance companies participating in Medicare Part D have created a very competitive atmosphere for the pricing of drugs. The federal government, while subsidizing these programs, is not an insurance company - it does not negotiate, it dictates.

As an example, the federal government requires the lowest price offered to any customer for any reason as a condition for participating as a supplier for Medicare Part D. While this may seem like a good strategy, the long-term result of eliminating any profit for the health insurance or pharmaceutical companies not only is the elimination of research for newer drugs (85 percent of which is privately funded), but it would also result in the loss of insurance companies willing to participate in the program.

That would force the government to become an insurance company, and once funding is no longer available, prescription drug benefits for seniors would have to be eliminated.

Other little-known facts are that pharmaceuticals continue to represent only about 10 percent of total health care expenses, and that money spent on pharmaceuticals decreases other health care costs significantly. Well more than half of a person's lifetime medical expenses occur during the last few years of life.

Still, the best way to reduce health care expenses is to live healthier lives.

TIM WEFLER

Eugene

Rogers right for Kidsports job

We will lose big if Randy Rogers does not become the next director of Kidsports.

I met Rogers years ago when the Eugene School District hired me to facilitate a meeting between sports organizations beginning to fight for gym and field space. His loyalty was clearly balanced by a genuine dedication to the success of other players - a Luke Ridnour-like good sport, and smart.

Rogers' expertise ranges from the Olympic level to the developmental fitness needs of young children. His record and education in these areas is stellar. He is a skilled fundraiser and a passionate advocate. He is generous yet honest with staff and volunteers.

He demands fair, respectful participation from players, refs, parents and spectators alike. As a leader, he will put greater emphasis on these values than we have historically asked of ourselves as a community.

Rogers knows to his bones what is at stake now that our crumbling educational system is unable to provide athletics. We have many great sports organizations in town, but their missions differ.

Kidsports provides opportunities for all children, emphasizing development over competition. We have a chance to hire someone who knows and loves our community, whose solutions are creative and knowledge-based, and whose resolve is proven.

The Kidsports Board is overlooking a first-class leader in reopening its search. Many parents are dismayed at a poor choice that appears politically motivated. We cannot afford to lose someone with Rogers' range of talents.

AMY GIBSON

Eugene

Leave moral judgments out

Watching the evening news on TV recently, my husband and I were distressed to learn of The Register-Guard's refusal to publish a birth announcement by a same-sex couple. In 1906, such a story might not have been surprising, but in 2006?

After an interview with the couple, who simply wanted to share their joy about the lovely new baby, it was reported that numerous calls by the TV station to the newspaper about the matter went unanswered.

Who is the newspaper afraid of offending? Isn't a birth announcement about celebrating life? There is no place for moral judgments about parents in a birth announcement.

We hope The Register-Guard will salvage its integrity by publishing the announcement.

CLAUDIA LAPP

GARY RABIDEAU

Eugene

Wyden was wrong on drug plan

The Register-Guard's editorial board seems to have run off the rails in its March 21 editorial headlined "Wyden was right."

Only in an Alice in Wonderland world could one say that the enormous costs and myriad problems associated with the Medicare prescription drug benefit plan "makes Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden look smarter."

Have the editors forgotten that Senator Wyden, plus a few other Democrats such as Zell Miller and John Breaux, joined with the Republicans to force this $700 billion turkey on the American people? As the editorial points out, the drug industry pulled out all the stops to make sure that cost containment was omitted from the bill; consequently, Medicare is prohibited from negotiating drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry.

In addition, the drug plan provided $12 billion in subsidies for private insurance companies. If Wyden were smart, he wouldn't have voted for this pork-laden mess in the first place.

Now he's trying to fix this badly flawed plan, but it's clearly a case of getting smart too late. As the editorial suggests, the best thing to do would be to junk this legislative monstrosity and try again.

JAMES L. DUNCAN 

Eugene

Fox opposed U.S. torture

In his March 22 letter, Tom Gauthier criticizes The Register-Guard for reporting on the torture of Iraqi prisoners, and he ridicules their suffering. It would be futile to address such heartlessness in a letter to the editor.

However, Gauthier also uses the name of Tom Fox to buttress his remarks and to suggest that there are two sides - the side of those who take the suffering of Iraqi prisoners seriously and the side of those who take the torture and death of Fox seriously.

This distorts the truth about Tom Fox. Fox's life was sacrificed in a struggle to stand between opposing sides and to care for the suffering. In his own words, he went to Iraq "to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors." He was a member of Christian Peacemakers Teams, who practice a Christianity worlds away from the Christianity of those who promote war and torture.

In their statement of conviction, signed by Fox, they write: "We continue to act as a resource to connect citizens of Iraq with human rights organizations, both local and international, as well as accompanying them as they interact with multinational military personnel and Iraqi provisional government officials."

If you want to see for yourself who Fox was, go to www.cpt.org. Read about CPT and read Fox's blog. "Do not lie," Fox would say, "and do not do what you hate."

JAMES CROSSWHITE

Eugene

Triad should stay in Springfield

Terrible thinking, Triad. Locating a proposed new hospital in a residential neighborhood, zoned long ago for single-family homes and open space and at the end of a dead-end road, is a dead-end idea.

Turn around, Triad. Don't spend McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center's well-deserved support as an important health care provider in our community. No amount of new medical service advertising from McKenzie-Willamette that hopes to build more consumer demand and preference can overcome the widespread public opposition to a land grab scheme that completely flies in the face of common sense. In the end, you just can't get there from here.

Triad, take your proposal off the table. Modernize and expand your current campus. Be part of an integrated health care solution for our region.

End the "Eugene or bust!" hostile takeover right now.

BRIAN BELL 

Eugene

Consider other hospital sites

I have never seen anything like the debacle that our city leaders are foisting on us.

First, parking meters destroyed the downtown area. Then, they moved the federal courthouse where there wasn't any parking. Now, they are going to build parking space so that an out-of-town food market can operate. Meanwhile, we are left without a hospital strategically located to serve the growing needs of our metropolitan area.

The hospitals are for those who live here, not for the convenience of the doctors. A number of excellent alternative siting suggestions have been made in these columns recently, but no one is acting on them.

Wake up, people. The handwriting is on the wall!

TOM GILLMAN

Eugene

Cut off funding for Iraq war 

Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith have consistently voted to continue funding the illegal and immoral war in Iraq.

They have bought President Bush's fraudulent propaganda line that those who oppose the war - the great majority of Americans - are not supporting our troops or, even worse, are un-American. Pouring more billions down this rathole (now estimated at $10 billion per month) and subjecting our troops to continued violence and death in pursuit of some vague concept of bringing democracy to Iraq is the worst form of cynicism imaginable.

The best way to support our troops is to get them out of that political and religious quagmire and stop the slaughter, torture and violence being conducted in our name and the further degradation of our moral position in the world. Continued funding of this profit-motivated war tells the Bush administration that the American people support its policies.

That is the wrong message. Withholding funds is the only way to force Bush to give up his fantasies of victory and control of Middle East oil and to set in motion the immediate withdrawal of our troops.

Using patriotism to justify this war warrants repeating Samuel Johnson's famous quote: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." As free citizens, let us all send a message to Sens. Wyden and Smith that voting for further funding of the war is misguided and lacking in courage, and they no longer deserve the support of Oregonians.

NEAL MILLER

Eugene

Bigger isn't always better

Supporters of Whole Foods must see growth only in terms of size. Thus they have urged construction of yet another big-box store and spending $8 million in tax dollars on a gasoline-consuming incentive to park cars.

They have alleged the existence of an untapped customer base sufficient to support 52,000 square feet to house more stuff. Opponents are not only skeptical of these claims, but they also see ways to spend those millions on more sophisticated measures of growth. I am among them.

In July 1936, I was about 8 pounds and 20 inches. Childish values soon convinced me that bigger must be better. I stopped growing when I was about 18. After a time, I came to realize that only my physical growth had maxed out. I found that I could continue to grow in other ways.

In terms of our community, those ways might include protecting at-risk families, supporting local farmers and other employers, bearing the added costs of sustainable resource use, preventing crime, improving health care and fostering human rights. To prefer instead to spend millions of tax dollars for the convenience of automobiles and voting to support a new market likely to undermine existing businesses reminds me of when my values had not yet outgrown the belief that bigger must be better.

I believe growth is most healthy among individuals and communities when loyalty is a two-way street.

ALAN WILM

Eugene

LETTERS LOG

Letters received in past week: 184

Letters published: 60

What's on readers' minds: Letter writers haven't lost interest in the controversy over bringing a Whole Foods Market and associated parking garage to downtown Eugene. The Whole Foods controversy and related comments about a proposed downtown development on Broadway drew the most letters for the fourth week running. On the national front, Sen. Russ Feingold's proposal to censure President Bush for his warrantless spying program was the top letters topic.