Gingrey the same as he’s always been
Recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution blog pieces by Jim Galloway purport to provide “an eye-opener” about “a changed Phil Gingrey” concerning the Affordable Care Act.
But I haven’t changed. I embrace the same Republican principles I’ve always held.
Galloway did correctly quote my recent blog in which I said my former colleagues in Congress should “retain, repair and revise” the ACA.
As for the retain part, going back to a 2010 interview with CNN I supported keeping many provisions of “Obamacare,” including adult children on their parents’ insurance and exchanges for low-income Americans.
As for the repair part, insurers are leaving one state after another. It would be cruel now to let insurance markets collapse, leaving millions without access to insurance coverage.
And as for the revise part, it is the likely path because today’s slim Republican Senate majority and strict Senate reconciliation rules makes complete repeal of the entire ACA seemingly impossible. If much of the current law is entrenched, Republicans should now make sound and principled revisions, while, as we physicians say, “doing no harm.”
Principles must be applied to changing circumstances. So I’m the same Phil Gingrey I’ve always been. Just ask my wife.
J. PHILLIP GINGREY, M.D., FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Coulter Twitter uproar is just clickbait
Since 1997, I have written over 20 books about the incredible Internet. It’s been a life-changing tool for billions. Unfortunately, in far too many cases, a molehill has been turned into a mountain. The most recent example: the Twitter outburst by Ann Coulter. Evidently, there was a minor incident with Delta Airlines. In pre-Internet times, Coulter would have lodged a complaint with a Delta representative and that would be the end of the story.
However, due to Coulter’s Twitter outrage, millions of people are aware of an incredibly unimportant event. It’s hard to believe that even major publications have reprinted the tale of Coulter’s woes. Because it is so easy to hit the send button, I have endorsed this acronym for years: TBS, Think Before Sending. Please, let’s right a wrong online. Let’s not tweet the minutia of life and let’s not comment on every Facebook post. And media, just because it might be good clickbait, let’s not report on items that are not newsworthy. Let’s Think Before Sending.
KEN LEEBOW, MARIETTA
Political polls carry no weight anymore
Susan Potter wrote a half-page article explaining how the AJC missed the mark, in reference to the results of a poll commissioned by her own newspaper in regard to the 6th Congressional District race (“Polling risks and why we keep doing it,” Opinion, July 16), in an effort of trying to give political polls — which is one of the most corrupted, manipulated, controlled and discredited tools in the political arsenal — some credibility.
The problem, of course, is not the tool itself or the way it collects information (when it is properly conducted) but what is the result that the person or the organization that paid for it wants to see. That’s when the devil comes out.
Polls are becoming so trashy that they no longer have the same weight in the people’s mind as they used to have.
ORLANDO LLERANDI, WOODSTOCK
Republicans just don’t know how to govern
The Republican party has the House, the Senate and the presidency. They have had almost eight years of complaining and threatening to do something about the Affordable Care Act. Yet, in all that time, they have obviously not spent much time or effort on putting together a reasonable alternative. The Senate leadership is tossing ideas out, sort of like making pasta, throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. It looks like after years of dragging their feet and vowing to do nothing, they have only learned their lesson too well, and now do not know how to accomplish anything. It’s hard to make America great again when you don’t know how to govern.
EDWIN PRINCE, SUWANEE
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