Wednesday March 10, 2010
LEONARD PITTS: Once again, the GOP wants you to be very afraid. TOMORROW
Opinion Page Editor: Vince Wheeler vwheeler@hpe.com (336) 888-3517
6A
Vehicles with inspection woes might get wavier My daughter’s check engine light came on in December and her car registration (and inspection) was due in January. I had always been told that a car could not get inspected if the check engine light was on, so I took her 2000 Explorer to my trustworthy mechanic. My mechanic doesn’t do inspections but has the equipment to “read” the car’s computer and determine what needs to be fixed. He replaced the least expensive part listed as possible failures. Unfortunately, the light came back on before we could get it inspected, so I told the guys at another place to just fix it and inspect it. The repairs cost nearly $1,000 and we had to drive it 50 miles to clear the computer then bring it back for inspection. Less than 20 miles later, the check engine light came back on, this time a completely different code. Totally frustrated, I asked my mechanic what he would do, and he mentioned a waiver. I had never heard of a waiver, so I went to the Web site for N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles and learned that if you spend at least $200 trying to repair your vehicle to pass inspection and it still won’t pass, you may qualify for a waiver so that you can get your registration renewed. Here’s what you have to do: (1) Have the car inspected and fail; (2) spend at least $200 to repair; (3) have it reinspected and fail; (4) take both inspections and receipts to the License and Theft Bureau; (5) if you get your waiver, take it to get inspected again and they have a waiver code to input that is sent to DMV; (6) get your registration! I learned a lot from all of this and wanted to pass the informa-
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tion along to others that may be in the same boat. I thought the state DMV didn’t care about how hard we try to comply with their rules and regulations, but they really do and have some safety nets in place to help us. DEBY SIMMERSON High Point EDITOR’S NOTE: DMV officials contacted by the Enterprise stress that full documentation of the individual’s situation must be presented when seeking the wavier. They also said that waivers are not automatically granted, there is a review and determination process for wavier requests. The Enterprise suspended the 300-word limit for this letter.
Now, they want us to train their workers in Vietnam Are your readers among the hundreds or thousands of unemployed furniture workers searching the classified section for jobs? Well, they can look no further. In Thursday’s papers, there were two ads for furniture managers
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A grateful mother says thank you to hero, others It is not every day that someone saves your life. I would like to thank Michael Harper for saving my life and the life of my two daughters on Feb. 17. If Harper hadn’t awakened us, we would
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What do you think of President Obama’s new proposals for health care reform? Will they pass muster in Congress? In 30 words or less (no name, address required), e-mail us your thoughts to letterbox@hpe. com. Here are two responses: • We think the same of government takeover of health care as we do the voters that put Obama in – these voters should get on their knees and pray for forgiveness. • Obama’s new proposal is arrogant government control at its worst. Mindless Congress will probably follow orders like lemmings to the sea.
Mandated benefits drive up cost of health insurance
Focus turns to home furnishings W his winter’s colder than normal temperatures appear to be letting up as March rolls in, so now attention begins turning to High Point’s spring home furnishings events. And there has been good news on that front during the last few days. The High Point Market Authority announced late last week that pre-registration is up for next week’s Premarket event. Authority officials said pre-registrations for Premarket include 161 buyers representing 70 home furnishings companies. Then this week, we learn that 42 showrooms already have announced that they will be open for business during next week’s event. Slowly but surely, the Authority is rebuilding Premarket and its importance to the industry toward the level of involvement it commanded a decade or two ago. We doubt we’ll see Premarket numbers of 5,000 or more as back then, but an attendance of several hundred and growing is much preferable to stopping Premarket events, as was considered just a few years ago. And certainly, it was great news from the Authority that for this spring’s market (April 17-22), attendees will pay hotel rates averaging just $134 a night compared to $175 last year. That is an indication to us that hotel operators around the city finally are realizing the long-term value of reasonable market rates and the long-term harm of unreasonably inflated market rates. And it’s a realization vitally important to the High Point Market’s future.
to go to Vietnam to train “their” workers to make “our” furniture! What a slap in the face to all the generations of hardworking former furniture employees from this area. It’s not enough that we lost American lives and wasted millions of dollars fighting for Vietnam against the Viet Cong. But hey, give them all our jobs. They already have our textile manufacturing. We’ll just keep the empty plants and ghost towns. What’s next? Our recipe for barbecue! All I can say is that the greed of these companies is sickening. JOAN WHITE Thomasville
have died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Carbon monoxide vapors were actually coming from the heat vents into every room. And the carbon monoxide alarm was beeping incessantly, but we didn’t hear it. Unknowingly, we had been in a “dead” sleep for hours and too sleepy to hear the alarm. Once we were awakened, Harper advised us to immediately get out of the house and to call the High Point Fire Department, EMTs and Piedmont Natural Gas Company, whom I would also like to thank for their efficiency and patience in answering all of my questions and for monitoring my children through this ordeal. Consequently, I was still without heat, but Harper brought a kerosene heater (and the kerosene to put in it) for us to use: What a hero! PARCEASTA HENRY High Point
ith all the controversies, charges, counter-charges and buzzwords swirling around the issue of medical care in the United States, there is a lot to be said for going back to square one and asking just what is the fundamental problem. The quality of the medical care itself is not the problem. Few – if any – countries can match American medical training, medical technology or the development of life-saving pharmaceutical drugs in the United States. Most countries with government-controlled medical care cannot come close to matching how fast an American can get medical treatment, particularly from specialists. Political hype is no reason to throw all that away. In fact, policies based on political hype over the years are what have gotten us into what is most wrong with medical care today – namely, the way it is paid for. Insurance companies or the government pay directly for most of the costs of most medical treatment in the United States. That is virtually a guarantee that more people will demand more medical treatment than they would if they were paying directly out of their own pockets, instead of paying indirectly in premiums and taxes. Since people who staff either insurance company bureaucracies or government bureaucracies have to be paid, this is not bringing down the cost of medical care, but adding to it. What also adds to the costs are politicians at both state and federal levels who mandate additional benefits to be paid for by insurance companies, thereby driving up the cost of insurance. If medical insurance simply covered risks – which is what insurance is all about – that would be far less expensive than covering completely predictable things like annual checkups. Far more people could afford medical insurance, thereby reducing the ranks of the uninsured. But all the political incentives are for politicians to create mandates forcing insurance companies to cover an ever increasing range of treatments, and thereby forcing those who buy insurance to pay ever higher premiums to cover the costs of these mandates. That way, politicians can play Santa Claus and make insurance companies play Scrooge. It is great political theater. Politicians who are pushing for a government-controlled medical
care system say that it will “keep insurance companies honest.” The very idea of politicians keeping other people honest ought to tell us what a farce this is. But if we keep buying it, they will keep selling it. One of the ways of reducing the OPINION costs of medical insurance would be to pass federal legislation putThomas ting an end to state regulation of Sowell insurance companies. That would ■■■ instantly eliminate thousands of state mandates, which force insurance to cover everything from wigs to marriage counseling, depending on which special interests are influential in which states. It would also promote nationwide competition among insurance companies – and competition keeps prices down better than politicians will. Moreover, competition can bring down the costs behind the prices, in part by forcing less efficient insurance companies out of business. Another very real and very big cost behind the high prices for medical treatment are the many forms of expensive “defensive medicine” that doctors and hospitals have to practice, in order to avoid being sued by unscrupulous lawyers. Expensive and unnecessary tests and treatments cost even more than the multimillion dollar awards that clever lawyers can get from gullible juries. Tightening up the laws, so that junk science does not prevail in courts, would create some real savings in medical costs. But, since plaintiff’s lawyers are big financial contributors to the Democratic Party, that is unlikely to happen during this administration. Finally, there are costs that are high because people want medical care in more comfortable surroundings – a private room rather than a bed in a ward, for example – and are willing to pay for it. This is more common among Americans. There is no reason for others to interfere with that, just because of a mindless mantra of “bringing down the cost of medical care” or class warfare rhetoric about “Cadillac health plans.” THOMAS SOWELL, a native of North Carolina, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.
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An independent newspaper Founded in 1885 Michael B. Starn Publisher Thomas L. Blount Editor Vince Wheeler Opinion Page Editor 210 Church Ave., High Point, N.C. 27262 (336) 888-3500 www.hpe.com
N.C. OFFICIALS
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House of Representatives Rep. Laura Wiley (R) (61st District), 4018 Quartergate Drive, High Point, NC 27265, 3368410045; Raleigh, 919-733-5877 Rep. Maggie Jeffus (D) (59th District), 1803 Rolling Road, Greensboro, NC 27403, 3362754762; Raleigh, 919-733-5191 Rep. John Blust (R) (62nd District), 5307 Pondfield Drive, Greensboro, NC 27410, 336-662-0368; Raleigh, 919-7335781 Rep. Earl Jones (D) (60th District), 21 Loney Circle, Greensboro, NC 27406, 336-2730840; Raleigh, 919-733-5825 Rep. Mary “Pricey” Harrison (D) (57th District), P. O. Box 9339, Greensboro, NC 27429, 336-2921953; Raleigh, 919-733-5771 Rep. Alma Adams (D) (58th District), 2109 Liberty Valley Rd., Greensboro, NC 27406, 336-2739280; Raleigh, 919-733-5902
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