Reform bill ‘on the right track’

Re: Michael Hiltzik’s column “Healthcare law needs patching up,” April 4:

Finally, a level-headed and informative piece about the health insurance reform bill. As flawed and incomplete as it may be, I believe we are on the right track.

For those who are still fighting and resenting this monumental chink in the armor of the huge health insurance industry, doing nothing to regulate this necessary evil would, in the end, not only continue the suffering of uninsured children and individuals, but continue to cause financial bankruptcies, devastating families both mentally and physically, and continue the spiraling, out-of-sight costs to our country and our economic recovery.

Diane Welch

Cypress

: :

My Canadian friends ask, “Why can’t the very wealthy U.S. government pay for the insurance premiums the same as the relatively poorer Canadian government, rather than compel a reluctant and recalcitrant U.S. public to pay?”

U.S. bureaucrats have no sense of appropriate and proper diplomacy toward the U.S. public, and seem to go to great measures to hassle, aggravate and anger them.

Rob Cantin

Inglewood

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A new entitlement program is being created by robbing Peter (Medicare) to pay Paul (Obamacare). Riddle me this: What sense does it make launching a new entitlement program when the federal government cannot effectively manage our currently existing entitlement programs?

Geoffrey C. Church

Los Angeles

Poor planning in South O.C.

Re: “St. Regis Monarch Beach has new owner,” April 7:

The recent takeover of the bankrupt but posh St. Regis Monarch Beach hotel by a Seattle company is symptomatic of the poor planning that has plagued South Orange County from the Space Age to the present.

It started with a huge aerospace building in Laguna Niguel, which had to be taken over by the federal government to use for storage of census data.

Then came a series of luxury hotels, no doubt planned for business travelers using the nearby El Toro International Airport, which to date, has not opened, and if the voters of South Orange County have their way, never will, despite the need.

Donald Nyre

Newport Beach

The real world is no better, kids

Re: “Snack bar deals students hard lesson in lost profit,” March 29:

It saddens me to see the student-run snack bar at South Pasadena High School struggle. Yet, as a small-business owner in California, I wish I had the forum to tell these kids that things are not much better in the real world.

How much would their business plummet if they had to pay payroll tax, corporate tax, use tax, unemployment tax, worker’s compensation and ever-increasing utility bills in a litigious state bent on killing the hand that feeds?

Jim Park

Riverside

Court can step in to create a trust

Re: “Search for father’s living trust,” March 28:

I’m surprised that none of the attorneys quoted in Liz Pulliam Weston’s Money Talk column about the father’s missing living trust mentioned substituted judgment, which allows a trust to be created even when an individual is mentally or legally incompetent.

This doctrine allows the court to step into the shoes of an individual to create a trustee, as long as his or her intent or wishes are unquestioned. The downside is that the trust then will be court-supervised, a reasonable trade-off in the case cited.

Richard J.

Pietschmann

Los Angeles

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