HUNTING AMENDMENT

Vote ‘No’ on HJR2

I am a fifth-generation Idahoan who doesn't hunt. I have no opposition to hunting so long as the hunter eats the results of the hunt. Killing an animal for trophy is not my idea of hunting. That said, those Idahoans who love the experience of the hunt should vote no on HJR2. Paul Jensen argues that this misguided piece of legislation is needed to ensure the right to hunt and fish. In his diatribe, he manages to make “progressive” a dirty word (think Limbaugh), denigrates the “left-leaning, progressive, elitists” (you know, those folks who happen to disagree with Jensen's extremist world view) who oppose HJR2, not for its reference to hunting but to the barbaric practice of trapping.

Tell me, Paul, how in the world did wildlife manage to control itself before man came along? Jensen and his trapping pals can put all the lipstick they want on this pig, trapping is inhumane and they know it. If hunters really want to protect their sport, they will dispense with the very tool that gives their opponents a legitimate argument for ending it. By the way, the Sierra Club is an environmental not an animal rights organization. Vote no HJR2!

KEITH HULL, Garden Valley

Vote ‘Yes’ on HJR2

Kathy Richmond's letter to the editor (July 17) was missing a key phrase.

She submitted this same letter to other Idaho publications, stating publicly that “the professional biologists at the Idaho Fish and Game Department are far better suited to decide what is the best way to manage our wildlife.”

Idaho Fish and Game stated, in the July/August edition of the Longspring Gazette, that “Hunting and trapping are two of our most important management tools.”

Kathy is right; IDFG manages wildlife appropriately via regulated hunting and trapping.

Vote YES on HJR2 on November.

ANDY WHITE, Editor, Longspring Gazette, official newspaper for the Idaho Trappers Association

HEALTH CARE

Providing treatmentis the Christian way

In the discussions regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act I see a major consideration missing. I’ll accept the idea that all Americans aren’t entitled to or deserving of health care. But what about the Christian principles so many say this nation was founded upon? We find one of those principles in the New Testament. “But if a man has enough to live on, and yet when he sees his brother in need shuts up his heart against him, how can it be said that the divine love dwells in him?” 1 John 3:17.

If you believe a person should only receive the health care he can pay for, even if it means he dies for lack of care, feel free to oppose the PPACA. But if you believe compassion, as taught by most every religion, encompasses helping the sick and injured who are poor, then work to improve, not destroy, the PPACA. The issue shouldn’t be whether every person receives health care, but how do we effectively deliver help from the person who has enough to live on to the person in need. The PPACA seeks to provide that delivery system. Let's work to improve it, not eliminate it.

MACARTHUR ELD, Parma

Paying more for coverage is not an act of patriotism

There is nothing patriotic about forcing the citizens of Idaho and other states to pay any more than they have to for health care.

Wayne Hoffman and his Idaho Freedom Foundation cloak themselves in “patriotism” by trying to make fighting affordable health care and risking higher premiums seem like patriotic acts on a par with resisting King George.

Our country already spends nearly one-seventh of our gross domestic product on health care. The Affordable Care Act can help bring those costs down and assure that all of us have health care.

Idaho voters are indeed patriotic, but we’re not stupid. We urge Gov. Butch Otter and the Legislature to act in the greater interest of us all, ensuring that our state has the best choices for health care coverage and receives its fair share of federal support for Medicaid, thus adding tens of thousands of Idaho citizens to the eligibility rolls.

Sorry, Mr. Hoffman, but our elected officials also serve the interest of the insured voters who would end up paying even more to cover their uninsured brethren. And surely, you would not call freeloaders — those who can afford to pay but won’t — “patriots.”

SUE PHILLEY, Boise

president, TransForm Idaho

Bureaucrats get rich from more programs

For all those who praise Obamacare, I hope you feel the same way when the government bureaucrats you’re helping to make rich go down to places like Las Vegas, or overseas and party like the GSA.

If I were to sell you a product using lies, treachery, deceit, false pretense and misrepresentation, I’m sure you would sue me for fraud. However, when the government does it, it’s a case of the ends justifying the means and for a greater good. It’s a tax.

I believe that if individual states wish to enact universal health care coverage for their own citizens, that’s their business. However, one size does not fit all on the national federal level. Your pills are your bills, not mine.

DUANE A. COATES, Meridian

HEALTH EXCHANGES

Consumers will pay more under insurance plan

Establishing exchanges is something Idaho shouldn’t consider. It opens the door to rules regulating government-approved coverage, removing those decisions from families and individuals who know best what their needs are. It will increase costs. Just the expense of operating exchanges will increase government spending, causing taxes to go up.

If you think these costs won’t affect you, think again. You’ll pay more for things due to businesses having to add the cost of the new taxes in the price of their product. Your health insurance payments will be higher. Mine, and many other people’s already are.

The solution is government eliminating obstacles to buying insurance across state lines and people joining associations to become a larger risk pool for buying insurance at better rates.

Politicians lament that not opening exchanges will result in Idaho “missing out on federal funds.” The federal government is already borrowing 42 percent. Adding this will increase borrowing or taxes or both. They say, “Tax the rich!” If Al Gore, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Oprah and Bill Gates were taxed 100 percent, it would pay for about 2 1/2 days of federal spending. Then they’ll be raising our taxes. Affordable this is not!

SHEILA FORD, Caldwell

GUNS & FIRE

Tax on ammunition could pay costs from fires

The Idaho Statesman noted that there have been 21 wildfires in Utah and perhaps a dozen in Idaho this year (so far) attributable to target shooters and random gunfire.

Since no one ever seems to be charged with this senseless endangerment of property and life, has anyone considered levying a tax on ammunition to pay for the cost of fighting these fires?

PAUL KLINK, Boise