Protecting a natural treasure; more on healthcare

Unspoiled beauty

Re “Saving the untrampled,” March 22

Thanks to The Times for introducing many to the proposed Berryessa Snow Mountain National Conservation Area. It is California’s best-kept secret -- a place where our state’s diverse natural landscapes come together and can still be seen unspoiled.

It has valleys where elk graze on wildflower prairies stretching as far as the eye can see, just as John Muir described them in 1868. Deeply shadowed old-growth forests -- home to Pacific giant salamanders, banana slugs, Pacific fishers and blue grouse -- extend north to Alaska but begin in this area.

Red fir and snow-clad alpine peaks are there too. So are strange ecological islands where the collision between North America and the Pacific has squeezed the Earth’s deepest mantle to its surface and created places where species found nowhere else can thrive.

All the world’s great hot spots of biodiversity and natural scenic beauty are not in remote places. One is just a short journey from California’s great cities.

Glen Holstein
Davis
The writer is an ecologist.

As a U.S. congressman, I spent many years working on legislative efforts to protect the environment.

Now my wife and I live in the Capay Valley in Yolo County, near the proposed Berryessa Snow Mountain National Conservation Area. We have joined local efforts to protect this unique landscape near our farm.

Local nonprofit Tuleyome and its partner organizations have been working hard and successfully to gain broad-based local community support for this designation of the federal lands by Congress.

A national conservation area designation provides effective public input into the management of the federal lands and allows federal agencies to share staff and resources across agency lines.

In elevating the status of this large patchwork of federal lands, recreational opportunities will be an integral part of the mix and the local communities in the region will reap significant benefits.

Pete McCloskey
Rumsey, Calif.

Healthcare gains and pain

Re “State takes healthcare bullet,” Column, March 25

The Times’ Capitol Journal columnist George Skelton writes of the healthcare expansion, which officials estimate will cost California $2 billion to $3 billion each year: “This may be a terrific and historic program, but it is going to cost the state money. We shouldn’t kid ourselves.”

Insightful, George.

Question: Where have you been on this issue the last 12 months?

David Conlon
Palos Verdes

Such threats aren’t new

Re “Democrats face threats after health vote,” March 25

The “tea party” members who posted the private addresses of Democratic officials intended only one thing: to incite violence. If they were truly interested in civilized discourse with these officials, they all could have been reached through public channels.

The true nature of the tea party movement is revealed. They do not care about democracy. They do not care about the United States of America. They care only that their ideology triumphs by any means necessary -- including violence and intimidation.

This is their vision for America: a world where dissent is met with threat and retribution and differences are resolved with bricks and guns.

The banner of patriotism these people wrap themselves in does nothing to conceal the beast of hatred and oppression that lies within.

Greg Seyranian
Redondo Beach

Are some of us terrorists?

The U.S. Congress -- Democratic and Republican -- is the first line of defense for our democracy.

Any attack on a congressional representative should be looked on as a threat to our national security and the well-being of this country.

Those who feel it is their right to express anger about the decisions our governing body makes by threatening their lives should be treated as what they are -- terrorists.

In the past, the Department of Homeland Security has wasted no time in investigating and applying the law against those it deemed a threat to this nation’s sovereignty. Where is it now?

Steven A. Apodaca
Whittier

Members of Congress are complaining that they are getting threats because of the healthcare legislation.

Funny, when a criminal or terrorist is caught, these same people -- and the media -- ask what we did to cause this behavior. Why aren’t the media and Congress asking what is causing the people to rise up and protest their actions?

It seems that Congress just wants to garner sympathy and play the victim. But I don’t think this is going to work.

Millions of pink slips were sent to our members of Congress, explaining that if they voted for this bill, we the people would vote them out.

I wait for November, so that all those who sent the pink slips can follow up on their promises.

Barry Levy
Hawthorne

Republican hatemongers preach that a young first-term Democratic president is somehow illegitimate.

They say he is a communist and of the wrong ethnic background and religion.

They urge their followers to do almost anything to derail his landmark social legislation.

Of course, I’m talking about 1963.

Today’s hate-filled, ignorant rhetoric coming from the right serves no legitimate purpose.

Isn’t there even one Republican willing to defy the lunatic fringe of their party?

Or is this fringe the new GOP base?

Like many Americans, I’m old enough to remember the terrorist act of Nov. 22, 1963, like it was yesterday. My hope is we don’t see history repeat itself in the very near future.

Bob Smagula
Santa Barbara

‘Obamacare’ revisited

Re “Healthy skepticism,” Opinion, March 23

The juxtaposition of Tuesday’s Op-Ed articles on healthcare couldn’t paint a clearer picture of conservative cruelty.

Robert Hollister speaks for millions of middle-class Americans trapped with insufficient funds and insufficient care, while Jonah Goldberg callously portrays the president as thinking people are “too stupid to go the doctor.”

They’re not stupid, Jonah, they’re unemployed, uninsured and/or broke.

Jess Winfield
Los Angeles

Goldberg may be right when he says “healthcare costs have been skyrocketing because consumers treat health insurance like an expense account,” but I take offense at his claim that “profit-hungry insurance companies were never the problem.”

In 2009, Blue Cross raised my premiums 35%, and its parent company, WellPoint, almost doubled its profits to $4.7 billion.

This year Blue Cross raised my rates 39%, and I’m sure its goal is another Wall Street-pleasing boost in profits for 2010.

Dick Sanders
La Quinta

Goldberg is once again posing as the poster child for let-the-market-decide ideologues.

He sets up one straw man after another in his effort to demonize what the administration has accomplished against rigid don’t-bother-me-with-facts opposition from Republicans.

Goldberg’s whining that Obama and the Democratic leadership “won dirty” is pathetic. It’s an example of the pot calling the kettle black.

And raising the specter of rationed care nicely ignores the reality of what we already have: rationing by insurance industry sleight of hand.

Goldberg comes across as nothing more than just another insurance industry shill.

Martin Parker
Thousand Oaks

Goldberg’s column is a dead-on description of the new healthcare plan -- particularly the part where it will (by intention) lead to the Democrats pushing a full-on single-payer system to solve problems that already existed, not to mention problems they are creating.

Only market-based solutions, like increases in medical savings accounts with the government only handling catastrophic care, will actually contain costs.

Richard Sol
Los Angeles