Letters to the editor for May 27
Actions speak louder than words on orca survival
Two years of work by the the governor’s Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force and what we have to show for it is a list of 49 recommendations to recover the orcas, and a new website to check on the progress of the Southern Residents. Is this a joke?
Scientists who have been researching these whales for over 40 years have been making these same recommendations since the early 1980s. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that without food the whales will die.
The new website is flashy, but the whales can’t eat it, and if we don’t take immediate action to restore the chinook salmon runs they depend on, all the recommendations in the world won’t save these orcas.
Christina M. Price, Rochester
Strength tempered by thoughtful action is needed today
In characteristic fashion, columnist Marc Thiessen is looking backward to deliver his partisan critique of the present.
Claiming that it was President Joe Biden’s weakness that tempted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, he points to former President Ronald Reagan as a model of strength and deterrence. Who knows what Reagan would be doing, but clearly one can see a potential nightmare scenario if our more recent former president were leading now, or if he were to lead in the future? NATO would be divided, we’d have bluster instead of resolve, and the potential for accommodation of Putin’s aggression instead of the West’s unified strength.
Peace can be promoted by America’s strength. Even so, the war in Iraq demonstrated that strength is more effective when tempered by thoughtful, deliberate action taken together with all who join us to act on our democratic values. This is the kind of strength we need today.
Richard L Brandt-Kreutz, Olympia
We need comprehensive drug pricing reforms for seniors
Patients like me are asking the Senate to pass a reconciliation bill that includes the comprehensive drug pricing reforms passed by the House last year. These provisions allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices and implement other reforms that will meaningfully lower prices for patients.
My health care costs actually went up when I recently went on Medicare, just as my income is going down. This is wrong and so unfair. Big Pharma is raking in huge profits while seniors are paying more for everything. There is no need for this!
If passed, this drug pricing legislation would be historic for patients — it would, for the first time, allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices for some of the most expensive prescription drugs; institute a cap on out-of-pocket costs for Medicare beneficiaries; cap copays on insulin for patients on Medicare and most commercial insurance plans, and limit annual price increases to stop price gouging by drug corporations that will help every American.
My stress level would be so much lower and my life so much easier if I didn’t have to worry about the price of my nine different daily meds.
I know that Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler want patients like me to be able to afford the medications I need. We need Congress to urgently pass a reconciliation package with comprehensive drug pricing reforms to lower drug prices now.
Lori Stefano, Yelm