A health care success story and other letters to the editors

Saturday, January 25, 2014

A health care success story

I am one of those folks dropped by BlueCross and told I had to go on Obamacare. It was the best thing to happen to me, even though that wasn't my initial feeling. I went with the Alliant Silver Plan, and my deductible dropped from $3,500 to $2,000. Prescriptions I couldn't afford at all now cost me $49 for a month's supply. BlueCross wouldn't pay for my $2,000 knee injections for arthritis; Alliant does. Yes, I had to change some doctors and some hospitals. But I have found others I like just as much, some even more. There are plenty to choose from. I was allowed three doctor's visits a year with a $30 copay on my old plan. Now I have unlimited visits with $30 copay for primary care doctors (includes OB-GYN) and $50 copay for specialists. And the best part? My husband and I are both covered for a little more than I was paying for just myself. Not sure about this? Check out healthcare.gov yourself and see if you can get as good (or better) a deal. People are quick to complain about Obamacare. If you ask me, it's an insurance company problem. I have always had to change hospitals and doctors every single time my insurance changed. It's just the way insurance companies work.

PAM SULLIVAN, Morganton, Ga.


Get tough on meth

I have been working on getting cities to make pseudoephedrine products prescription-only for several months. I do this because the state Legislature will never do it, and because it is the only ingredient that you have to have to make meth. The fact that it conflicts with state law should be of no consequence. If drug companies sue cities for keeping their citizens safe, they will be laughed at and their stock will drop. And besides, the governor says that over 90 percent of those sales are to good-old law-abiding boys and girls so the army store clerk couldn't have been selling all that iodine to purify 10.5 million gallons of water to make meth? If that's the case then could there really be 100,000 meth labs in Tennessee on any given day? And if that were true then imagine the billions in profits the drug companies are making off their pseudoephedrine sales. If police want to prosecute a meth kingpin, how about the drug companies who sell it to the drug stores knowing that two out of every three pseudoephedrine sales will go to make meth?

DAVID CLARK, Tullahoma, Tenn.