HEALTH CARE
Response to “Insurance exchange looms,” News, June 16
Kudos to the AJC for this very informative article. It clears the air on several confusing items. As always, the devil is in the details. The following are a few.
Many healthy young people will completely opt out and pay the nominal fine, causing premiums to go even higher.
Headings under Essential Health Benefits can be very misleading. For example, my current plan covers screenings if — and only if — nothing questionable is found. Even the simplest benign issue causes something to become an out-of-pocket expense.
Don’t put a lot of faith in the state Department of Insurance’s inclination to hold down premiums, given its revolving-door relationship with the insurance companies it supposedly regulates.
How much better off we would have been if we had adopted what every other industrialized country in the world uses to achieve lower costs with better outcomes: single-payer.
CLAUDE CRIDER, WALESKA
CIVIL FORFEITURE
Innocent parties lose under current laws
“Court of public opinion” (Opinion, June 16) highlights the questionable spending of forfeiture funds, but ignores the larger issue: Innocent property owners are losing their property.
Your property can be seized in Georgia even if you have not been convicted or even accused of a crime. Even worse, the burden of proof is on you — not on the state — to prove your innocence, and you must sue to retrieve your property. Questionable spending is worthy of concern, but the greater flaws in our civil asset forfeiture law are negatively impacting peoples’ lives.
KELLY MCCUTCHEN, PRESIDENT, GEORGIA PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION
SCOUTING
Making a difference in young boys’ lives
It was a delight to read Jay Bookman’s opinion piece on his experience in Scouting and what a difference it made in his life (“Teaching an important lesson,” Opinion, June 16). Somewhere along the line, we have lost an understanding of the importance of Scouting to our youth.
With so many boys being raised without a father, Scouting gives them the opportunity to meet with men and women who give dedicated leadership to help these young boys become responsible citizens. As a Scout leader, I can certainly feel that Scouting has been so meaningful in the lives of the boys I have worked with. I am so thankful to Mr. Bookman for his incredible, important column about what Scouting meant to him.
JOSIAH V. BENATOR, ATLANTA
Homosexuality isn’t a normal experience
Jay Bookman’s column topic for Father’s Day was reprehensible (“Teaching an important lesson,” Opinion, June 16). Your decision to print it was reprehensible.
Homosexual membership in Boy Scout troops should not be spoken of as though it should be a normal boyhood experience; it’s not, it never has been, and it never will be.
JACK FRANKLIN, CONYERS
