Letters on Doctors’ Day, insurance costs, Estes, Thompson, DMV

Doctors dedicated to patients, community

For more than 80 years, National Doctors’ Day – March 30 – has been set aside to show appreciation for the work physicians do caring for the sick and injured and advancing the science and practice of medicine.

Physicians arrived in Wichita even before the city was incorporated in 1870 and have been taking care of residents ever since. In 1903, 25 physicians founded the Medical Society of Sedgwick County and met weekly to share the latest medical knowledge and information about conditions they were treating. Today, more than 1,200 members of the MSSC continue to promote ethical practice, research, medical education and community health.

Doctors believe their role is a sacred calling that delivers joy through healing, caring and serving. Many of us also enjoy teaching, which is why last year MSSC members began a new Doctors’ Day tradition – visiting local high schools to tell students about our profession and why we chose it. This year, we will visit even more schools.

On Doctors’ Day, please join me in recognizing local physicians and their dedication to their patients and the health and future of our community.

Insurance costs

Everyone is supposed to have car insurance, and if you have an accident, your rate usually goes up. Everyone should have insurance on their home, and if you file for storm damage, your rates often go up. The same is true with health insurance.

As soon as the Affordable Care Act was initiated, people who did not have health insurance and needed health care enrolled and used their new insurance. Unfortunately, not enough of those young and healthy enrolled, so claims exceeded premiums.

Insurance companies are in the business to make a profit. So if they receive losses, they either raise premiums or removed themselves from the marketplace.

Trumpcare eliminates the individual mandate. That means the sick and ill will get insurance, but many others will not. Also, people between 50 and 64 years of age will pay a surcharge. Pharmaceutical companies will be receiving huge tax breaks, as will the rich.

I thought President Trump said everyone would be covered and at lower costs.

A majority of Trump supporters are about to pay a huge price for their vote, and this is not fake news.

Vote for Estes

On April 11, Kansans in the 4th Congressional District will have a unique opportunity to replace former Rep. Mike Pompeo with another reform-minded conservative in Ron Estes.

While elected officials in Washington, D.C., seem perfectly comfortable mortgaging our future by spending hundreds of billions more than federal government brings in from our tax dollars, Estes has a history of balancing budgets and finding efficiencies in both the private and public sector.

As Sedgwick County treasurer, he implemented new processes that returned $1.5 million to the taxpayers while improving services at the same time. As Kansas state treasurer, he has come in under budget by more than $600,000 and returned more than $113 million in unclaimed property to Kansans. That is why one of his top priorities in Congress will be to pass a balanced budget amendment and restore accountability to taxpayers.

Estes understands that mortgaging our future is a path to disaster. He is a honest man who will take our Kansas values to Washington. Please join me in sending Ron Estes to be our voice in Congress.

Thompson for vets

During the nationwide scandal over lengthy wait times for veteran health care, I was taking care of my father, a World War II vet. As quality health care failed, we became mired in a quicksand of bureaucratic red tape while our leaders focused on making themselves look good.

Since the GOP has controlled Congress, veteran homelessness, suicide, unemployment and bankruptcy have increased.

My dad is gone, but the long waits for appointments, outdated and less-effective prescriptions, ever-changing doctors, and compartmentalized care resulting in lack of communication have not. It’s over for him, but not for my husband, a Vietnam vet.

Will he be forced to stop seeing his private doctor, as my father was? Will his non-Veterans Affairs cardiac and vascular specialists, who are paid by our private insurance, be lost to red tape? My dad was forced to use the VA exclusively.

Today, care for veterans is still embarrassingly inadequate. I will not vote my former party; I will vote to balance the negative effects of our current GOP.

This is urgent. Veterans are in serious need, yet forgotten. James Thompson, 4th Congressional District candidate, will not forget them. I urge you to give him the opportunity to fight for them.

DMV runaround

I recently went to the local Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain a state ID for my 15-year-old granddaughter. I went to the website and carefully looked at the requirements and, having satisfied each one, I went to the local driver’s license office to obtain the ID – only to be told that the website was not accurate.

While we had my granddaughter’s school ID, with a picture, two pieces of mail with her name and address, the birth certificate and the Social Security number and medical records, including her shot record, it was not enough.

We were sent home to get the Social Security card itself, despite the website clearly stating that the number was what was required.

I called Topeka, fussed around with phone tag and was finally told that, indeed, the Social Security card itself was required. This is not what the website clearly states.

If the goal of the DMV is to make folks go back and forth between home and the driver’s license offices, miss work and waste lots of time, it is wildly succeeding. Putting out false or misleading information is really a jab in the eye with a sharp stick.

What is wrong with these folks? Or perhaps their instructions are to make it as difficult as possible for citizens to obtain an ID the state itself is insisting on.

This story was originally published March 26, 2017 at 5:04 AM with the headline "Letters on Doctors’ Day, insurance costs, Estes, Thompson, DMV."