Letters for November 14, 2019

Numbered off

Re “Numbers guy” (Letters to the editor, Nov. 7):

For a “numbers guy” you sure don't understand how numbers work. To assume CEOs, complex administration, and other aspects of the current system don't add value and removing them will not have consequences is just complete ignorance. The complex system we have has evolved to address fraud and abuse in the system over the past 30 years. Removing them will just restore the waste that bore them. Very few people have zero or small out-of-pocket, that is not why people like their plans. If government takes over health care, it will impact what doctors people can see, force tens of thousands to retire, and even more to reduce their hours. We have universal coverage with the VA, and the government has failed miserably. Medicare is near universal and it's insolvent. For a numbers person, you can't seem to get any of them correct.

Nate Ogden

Reno

Cut and dry

Re “The old days” (Letters to the editor, Nov. 7):

I wish that I could sit down and chat with Charles Wayne Barnman, whose letter appeared in the November 7, 2019, issue of the RN&R. I am writing this letter because there appears to be no opportunity for dialogue with Mr. Barnman. Fundamentally, the following letter presents five indisputable facts, and then poses to Mr. Barnman a single question whose answer depends only upon those facts. Fact no. 1: During Donald Trump's inauguration as president of the United States Mr. Trump took a solemn oath that he would “to the best of (his) ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Fact no. 2: Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States requires that the president “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Fact no. 3: During the Revolutionary War, before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, the Continental Congress passed a whistle blower statute, and protected whistle blowers to such an extent that the Continental Congress reimbursed a pair of whistle blowers' legal expenses totaling $1,418.00 for successfully defending themselves against a criminal libel suit brought by the malefactor that they accused of wrongdoing. Fact no. 4: The whistle blower statute presently enacted into United States law prohibits revealing the identity of a whistle blower. Fact no. 5: Donald J. Trump has repeatedly demanded that the identity of the July 25, 2019, telephone conversation's whistle blower be revealed. Question: In demanding that the identity of the whistle blower be revealed is President Trump “to the best of (his) ability, preserv[ing], protect[ing] and defend[ing] the Constitution of the United States,” and is President Trump as required by the Constitution of the United States “take[ing] care that the laws be faithfully executed?”

Donald Schreiber

Incline Village

Rumbling stomach

Re “Playing the field” (Feature story, Oct. 31):

Let me get this straight. In 2018, a 17-year-old girl escaped from her alcoholic father, by pushing him away from her to break his grip of her arm and ran barefoot with her younger (than 17-year-old) little sister to her grandmother's house. And she—a 17 year old girl—was arrested by the Henderson Police, strip-searched, processed and put in a cell with no food or water and a broken toilet for over 24 hours. And, when she was released to a social worker, she was told that she was lucky she was only 17, because if she were an adult she would've gone to prison? Let this sink in, folks. This happened to a 17-year-old girl who was running away with her little sister from her alcoholic father! And this was matter-of-factly and emotionlessly written by reporter Matt Bieker. Where I come from, this is called child abuse, plain and simple, committed by both her drunk father and the Henderson Police Department! Really? A policeman arrests a child and puts her in a jail cell but doesn't arrest the perpetrator of this act, her father? Help me understand this. Do the police in Henderson get any training on how to help a child after that child has been abused by a parent? She takes the fall for her father because she couldn't go to college and have her father go to rehab because they'd lose their house? I am appalled by the Henderson Police Department's treatment of this child! And appalled by the manner in which this child abuse was reported in the article, as though she was getting arrested for jay walking. Isn't the Police motto “To Protect And Serve”? Shame on all of you!

Michaelle Van Meter

Reno