Press Democrat readers comment on health care, and more.

Health care cuts

EDITOR: The House passed huge cuts that will slash California’s Medi-Cal health services. More important, they will have a devastating impact on nearly half the people from eight counties that make up the Redwood Empire. Congressional Districts 2 and 4, represented by Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson. The population of these eight counties is over 900,000 people, Medi-Cal covers 500,000 people — elders, children, disabled people and nursing home residents. Many recipients work.

The Trump Medicaid cuts will increase suffering and death to the physical and mental health of chronically ill patients, children, disabled people, nursing home patients and working people. It will foster a tsunami of economic pain — huge job losses and regional business losses in the Redwood Empire.

Sonoma County has 142,000 Medi-Cal recipients with an expenditure of $1.65 billion per year. The Redwood Empire will suffer a loss of $79.8 million in funding.

Health care is an economic multiplier that supports jobs beyond health care institutions. Our eight-county region faces a potential loss of 6,000 direct jobs and untold numbers of indirect jobs. The Trump administration and Republicans will also cut the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

This is a bare-bones overview of what awaits North Bay counties and doesn’t include Veterans Affairs cuts for clinics and services.

RICHARD SAVAGE

Santa Rosa

Litter everywhere

EDITOR: Can you not tell how irritating and irresponsible litterers openly violate everyone’s yards? It’s everywhere you go. Residential areas, parks, outside businesses, grocery store parking lots, the Sonoma County libraries and, if you can believe this, even in front of the Rohnert Park Public Safety Department, but more important, our creeks and waterways. It’s everywhere. Why isn’t anything being done about this? Is this an individual, a group of individuals, outside agitators, perhaps? I don’t know who’s “responsible” for the mess itself, but it’s everywhere in Sonoma County as far as I can tell. Is the county responsible for organizing cleanup efforts since the problem is everywhere? Or is it up to the individual cities? Hopefully someone can provide some insight to this problem and address the mess.

THOMAS GOLDBECK

Santa Rosa

Money and sports

EDITOR: Once upon a time humans used to play games because they were fun. Then crowds appeared willing to pay to watch them having fun. Thus, professional sports were born. And kids in school were still having fun without pay. No more. Now colleges must pay their student-athletes (now an oxymoron). As Bob Padecky says, college sports have “been reduced to a money grab” and “everyone is for sale” (“More money means more problems for college sports,” June 10).

American culture is an entertainment culture. When we become bored, anxious, sad, tired or sociable, we want to be entertained. As Padecky tells us, “College athletes are entertainers, and they must get paid.” But if the most popular sports get the preponderance of funding, guess which ones will get dropped? If paying college athlete-entertainers is now a reality, can high school athletes be far behind?

GENE A. HOTTEL

Santa Rosa

Authoritarian rule

EDITOR: Since ancient times, our civilization has relied on authoritarian rule. Violence and intimidation achieve obedience. Many ancient regimes have left artifacts to prove that tyranny yields results. Has anyone wondered what the peasants thought about their achievements? Do you believe that greats like Michelangelo wanted to paint pictures depicting biblical events? Have you ever wondered how many slaves, how many lives, were destroyed before an autocrat found one who could perform under pressure? A thousand? If a mathematician could quantify the results, do you think the study would dissuade the megalomaniacs? More likely than not, someone would want to wrest control of the government from its citizens. More likely than not, the autocrat would try to quash dissent. More likely than not, it would take violence to depose the autocrat. Democracy is a mode of political rule that reduces violence if the citizens are willing to participate.

TOM FANTULIN

Fort Bragg

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.