PUBLIC FORUM : IT'S TIME TO DUMP THE HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY.

The report in the Aug. 9 Daily News that ``41 million lack health insurance'' is no news at all to the average practicing physician. What a national shame and tragedy.

The fact that the health insurance companies have found ways to skirt the Kassebaum-Kennedy law, which was intended to make medical insurance portable, keeps many workers from retaining their coverage when they leave or change jobs.

Every day, I see patients without medical insurance. If those patients have identifiable risk factors, it's difficult or even impossible for them to get affordable coverage. If they become very sick, I have no choice but to send them to a publicly funded facility such as Olive View Hospital. The care there is good, but the system is overburdened and underfunded.

It's time to dump the health insurance industry, its marketing and administrative overhead waste, and obscene executive incomes. It's time for this country to spend the health-care dollar on health care. We need a national health program, Medicare for all, so that no one goes without care and everyone has the choice of doctor and hospital.

- Melvin H. Kirschner, M.P.H., M.D.

Van Nuys

Poll exposes our immorality

The latest poll on the president's standing is yet another example of what a sorry country we've become. It seems that 60 percent of the respondents wouldn't think of impeaching the president if it's true that he lied about having sex with ``that woman, Monica Lewinsky.''

Would that same 60 percent think all was OK if it were their mates? Are we so immoral a people that we care only about our financial well-being but don't give a fig about our moral health? This president is given credit for our country's good economy, when in truth he is just fortunate to be around when a cyclic economy is on the upturn.

I am happy to say that a vast majority of people I speak to don't agree with those taking part in the polls, so maybe they aren't truly reflective of American opinion.

- Della Spinelli

Thousand Oaks 

No pain if there's no stain

I see it all. The stain on Monica's dress was placed there by Mark Fuhrman. The jury (read: American public) will see through this obvious frame-up and come in with a verdict of not guilty. Bill Clinton will then vow that after leaving office he will spend the rest of his days playing golf and searching for the real sperm donor.

- Bill Clarke 

Llano 

Chick's arrogance disturbing

I read the Daily News article last week and immediately called Laura Chick's field office to ask to speak with her on this issue. I have never before taken up or asked for a moment of her time. I was told by Chick's staff that she was refusing to speak to her constituents on this matter.

She is a public official, paid with public funds, working in a public office, on public land. For her to deny access to the very people she swore to serve is the height of contempt and arrogance.

- Craig Hawley

Reseda

Detractors don't know Chick

While I don't always agree with her vote, I know Laura Chick has consistently attempted to create a more responsive, effective, safe and efficient city government.

Those six angry people who singled her out in your paper, with someone even saying she is ``the most arrogant politician in the Valley,'' obviously have never met or spoken with her and know very little about her and her accomplishments.

- Harriet K. Bilford

Northridge

Support Alzheimer's homes

There are presently 4 million Americans and their families who are suffering from a progressive, degenerative disease called Alzheimer's. Health demographers estimate that number will more than triple in the next 40 years, as the baby boomers start to age.

Because the fastest-growing population segment is those over 85 and the prevalence rate of Alzheimer's at that age is almost 50 percent, it will not be long before every family in California will be taking care of someone with Alzheimer's disease. It is a silent epidemic.

Of late, there has been considerable neighborhood debate and controversy about the opening of small Alzheimer's care homes in the Valley. Typically, these homes provide 24-hour care to elderly individuals with Alzheimer's who do not require skilled nursing, just custodial care, such as help with dressing, bathing and eating.

At heart is the question of whether these homes should be allowed to operate in residential neighborhoods. But the Alzheimer's Association asks, where else should such homes be located? In industrial or commercial zones? Where would you want to live? Should we warehouse our infirm and elderly? Where would you want your mother to live?

In thinking about people with Alzheimer's disease as neighbors, we must remember that most are frail and elderly; they are not disruptive to communities. From the outside, board-and-care homes are indistinguishable from the other neighborhood homes. All the activities are well-supervised. Residents are seldom seen outside the home or an enclosed outdoor space. They are of no risk to neighborhood children.

We in the Greater Los Angeles community need to ask ourselves where we want our loved ones with Alzheimer's to live. In all of the San Fernando Valley, there are 3,000 board-and-care beds available to the frail elderly. The Los Angeles Alzheimer's Association estimates a minimum of 18,000 people with Alzheimer's live in the Valley alone. Thus, there are many more Valley families who want to keep their loved ones with Alzheimer's close to home than can currently do so.

When it is our turn to seek such care for a loved one, let us hope that our society and our public representatives protect our right to keep them near home.

- Peter Braun

Executive director,

L.A. Alzheimer's Association

Don't look for imaginary rift

Re Jose Hernandez's column, ``A Latino-Jewish rift may yet turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy'' (Opinions, Aug. 4):

A few more columns like this one and he may yet create the rift.

Just think, it all began when a politician who happened to be Jewish refused to assume the persona of the perennial victim who, after being spat upon, raised his eyes to the sky and proclaimed, ``Looks like it's going to rain

''

Let's reverse this scenario. Let's say Richard Katz sent out a mailer that arrived a few days before the election in which it was stated that Richard Alarcon ``continues to batter his wife and children.'' Enough people, believing this total lie, vote against him, resulting in a close victory for Katz.

Would Alarcon take this lying down? Nunca (never)

Then why should Katz? There is no rift yet - merely a politician (Alarcon) playing sleazebag politics. Should he happen to win, the message is loud and clear to all future candidates that this is the way to win.

No way, Jose (Hernandez).

- Paul Wasserman

Northridge

Let homeowners fix walks

I am really surprised by how little interest the story ``Taking crack at sidewalk repairs'' (Daily News, July 19) seemed to have attracted. It would be a real eye-opener if residents were allowed to visit one of the offices and find out what really goes on.

Many years ago, as a city of Los Angeles employee, I was assigned to the Street Use Inspection Division. Our at-the-time supervisor wanted to keep track of complaints, so he had every clerk work about one hour a day sticking color-coded pins into a map. Since each year - we were working on five years of complaints - was assigned a different color, and there may be a dozen complaints within a particular block, you can imagine what the map looked like within a few days.

Within a couple of weeks, the project was abandoned, as we simply ran out of room for pins. Nobody seemed to realize we spent time sticking pins into a map rather than doing the work we were paid to do. Talk about mismanagement.

The best thing is to allow the homeowner to repair his/her own sidewalk, with periodic inspections as to the condition it's in. Knowing this, few would take the chance of using a mixture containing too much cheap sand to save money. Also, allow them to take out the parkway trees and plantings, and then cement, brick or otherwise pave over this water-guzzling area.

The Street Use Inspection Division could then send personnel into the field, rather than thinking up the pins-in-maps and other such inane schemes.

- Anita Work

Sylmar

Sidewalk tax unnecessary

Re the City Council backing a sidewalk tax:

I don't know where the council has been, but everyone on the block where I live had to repair their own walks. The city told the property owners they had to repair their own walks or the city would and bill the property owner for the repairs. This doesn't require a tax hike.

If a measure like this should ever pass, all property owners who have repaired their sidewalks that the city trees in the parkway have uprooted should be reimbursed by the city for all their expenses.

- Duane Linss

Sherman Oaks

Psychiatry holds no answers

I'm writing in response to Mona Charen's column ``Killings show mentally ill mishandled'' (Opinions, July 30). There have been many recent senseless killings, and they do indeed show that the mentally ill are being mishandled. Unfortunately, Charen completely misses the point of where the mishandling is occurring.

Psychiatrists by their own admission are unable to cure any mental illness. They only purport to treat it, and their treatments can be shown statistically to more frequently worsen the condition than improve it.

Not only are psychiatrists unable to do anything to cure or abate violence, they are equally unable to predict whether a person will be violent in the future. Their own studies, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, have shown that their predictions of violent behavior among the mentally ill are wrong two-thirds of the time. Not even 50-50. Any one of us could do better by flipping a coin.

So please, let's not talk about solving violence with psychiatry. That's like solving a house fire with gasoline.

- Mari Werner

North Hollywood