PUBLIC FORUM HOSPITAL EMERGENCY.

Re ``Hospitals seek relief'' (Business, March 19):

Three weeks ago my son had a fever of 105 at 6:30 a.m. I rushed him to Tarzana Medical Center's emergency room. They accepted my $50 co-pay, and admitted him, took chest X-rays and diagnosed pneumonia. They began fluids and antibiotics, and released him in four hours.

Yesterday I got the explanation of benefits from our health plan. For that wonderful service, and had I not had insurance, the charge would have been $5,647.47. Now I read in the Daily News that one reason these charges are so high (five hours in emergency for over $5,600) is due to the low taxpayer reimbursement for uninsured emergency patients. I wonder how many of those uninsured are Wal-Mart ``associates?''

- Prentiss Moore

Sherman Oaks

Uninsured crisis

Re ``Valley hospitals in crisis'' (March 18):

Hospitals will remain in Code Blue until we face up to the primary cause. Who are these 300,000 (vastly understated) new immigrants each year? And who are the 50 percent of hospital patients without insurance or money?

Just spend one evening at any local emergency room for the answer. They are filled to overflowing with illegal aliens being treated for everything from the sniffles and other minor problems to pregnancies and gangbanger assaults. Until our politicians find the courage to enforce our immigration laws and to deny benefits to those here illegally, the crisis will only worsen.

- Bill Hamburg

Woodland Hills

In the private sector

Re ``Money for nothing'' (Editorial, March 16):

I was elated to see someone address a very real and serious issue that threatens to bankrupt our communities and state. I have worked in the same industry for 29 years - since I was 19 years old - and have owned my own business for the past 19 of those 29 years. I can't draw Social Security until I am 67 years and 2 months, and my retirement savings might last three to four years. Who knows how I could ever afford insurance.

By having public employees retire at age 50 with full benefits - including insurance - who can then draw money and insurance for up to another 40 years is unlike anyone in the private sector. Also as the number of retirees grows and life spans grow, we are setting ourselves up for public bankruptcy.

- William A. Vaughn

Camarillo

Public employees' pay

Re ``Money for nothing'' (Editorial, March 16):

I started as a state employee 15 months ago at just over $14 an hour. A 5 percent raise I later received was rescinded after about three months in a union concession to preserve jobs during this budget difficulty. I am a university graduate, a requirement of my occupation, and I am still paying my student loans.

I live in a rent-controlled apartment on the Westside of Los Angeles in a neighborhood where I can't afford to buy and will never be able to buy as a state employee. None of my co-workers downsized from the private sector into public employment are celebrating their good fortune.

- Chris Deering

Los Angeles

Cause and effect

When it comes to Iraq, the world is better if only because it has ridden itself of Hussein. With the war on Iraq, Iran and North Korea, I am inclined to believe they are paying attention to the ``cause/effect'' of their own behavior. Libya, with its own voluntary decision to dismantle its atomic projects, has intelligently set a course of a vast economic and social change for its own people - and the world. That is axiomatic.

So, do not be too hard on President Bush and if you criticize, do it intelligently. Visualize having his responsibility of having to decide what to do with Iraq when its own leader - seemingly hiding something - expels U.N. inspectors looking for WMD. Would you be inclined to believe he has some hidden WMD?

- Michael A. Campos

West Hills

Flawed analogy

Re ``Not about Islam'' (Your Opinions, March 18):

The author's statement reveals his own ignorance about Islam and the Middle East. He states that equating al-Qaida with Islam is like equating the Ku Klux Klan with Christianity. However, several polls taken in Islamic countries have shown that well over 60 percent of Muslims feel Osama bin Laden is a hero and does support their interests, while I sincerely doubt you could find 1 percent of the people in Western countries to say the same about the KKK.

- Eric Newberg

Woodland Hills

Just democracy

People who think the Spaniards kicked their government out of office because they were scared show complete ignorance of Spain's modern history. For the past 45 years the Spaniards have bravely fought ETA, the terrorist group that has killed many more hundreds of people than the March 11 attack did.

To say they ousted their government out of fear or for a desire to appease the terrorists is ridiculous and insulting. Ninety percent of Spain's population opposed the government's support of the Iraq war. All over Spain, millions demonstrated against the war. The Spaniards only exercised their right to oust a government that went against their will and that misled them. Ole.

- Monica Gottschalk

Quartz Hill

He's OK with that

Re ``Continuous barrage'' (Your Opinions, March 17):

After reading Robert Kunz's letter saying the Democratic National Committee members are liars, I am wondering if he is blind, naive, oblivious or all of the above when comes down to his Republican Party. I mean, our so-called president has lied about Iraq, 9-11, the economy, California's energy crisis, jobs, the deficit, basically whenever he has spoken Dubya has lied - yet Kunz accepts that.

I'm confused by the loyalty. Dubya has basically committed fraud, lied to Congress (an impeachable offense), lied to the people who supported him, and again that's OK. Come November we need a regime change in Washington and it's only a matter of time before people will demand it.

- Erik Weinberger

Woodland Hills

Enemies within

Is it possible that enemies of the United States have secretly contracted with Bush and Co. to systematically destroy our democracy from within?

- Parker Young

North Hollywood

Who is smarter?

Re ``There was no case'' (Your Opinions, March 1):

You state that Bush knew ``there was no good evidence Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.'' If this be the case, then he must be smarter than Bill, Hillary, Gore, Albright, Kerry Kennedy, and the U.N., all of whom claimed knowledge of Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction. Doesn't this contradict the left's argument that Bush is stupid?

- Brian Peterson

Valley Village

Redefining words

Re ``Council, board jump on gay wedding train'' (March 4):

The City Council and Board of Supervisors have no right redefiningwords. Marriage is: ``the legal union of a man and woman as husband andwife.'' This comes from the Middle English and has been the accepteddefinition for centuries.

The definition of gay used to be: ``showing or characterized by cheerfulness and lighthearted excitement; merry.'' This definition has also been around for centuries. If the homosexual agenda tries making a mockery of our vocabulary, we, as Americans, need to work to keep our language pure. Let the homosexuals come up with a new word, but leave our definitions alone.

- Marti Marshall

Sunland

Image is not all

Martha Stewart apparently has won the hearts of many Americans; however, under normal circumstances, the law is applied equally to all people without regard to race, color, creed or community standing. Stewart was a stockbroker, not a simple housewife making ``good'' using her talents to rise to the top.

It is American to uphold what appears to be wholesome, and it is difficult to come to the understanding that sometimes what seems to be wholesome is really rotten. What she ``stood'' for as a public entity was the image of homemaking and household comfort that many of us remember from our childhood; the personal choices of Stewart are proving to be anything but wholesome.

- Debriana L. Jones

Lancaster