Inbox

Obama's Health-Care Drama

Your cover story "Paging Dr. Obama" was timely [Aug. 10]. Unfortunately, the President's plan misses a fundamental point. Our flawed legal system is largely responsible for the way doctors defensively practice medicine and the pharmaceutical and insurance companies and hospitals gouge consumers unlike anywhere else in the world. Nowhere else are there as many malpractice suits as in the U.S. Shame on the lawyers who load the judicial system with phony lawsuits. Without appropriate malpractice reform, nothing will improve. Sudhir K. Bhaskar, ORLANDO, FLA.

It is clear that our health-care system needs improvement, but many average Americans do not trust the government to do the job. A large part of the reason may be that what Congress designs for us is guaranteed to be, as with Social Security and retirement plans, vastly inferior to what they create for--and bestow upon--themselves. Kenneth Solnit, CUPERTINO, CALIF.

Health-insurance companies have been spending $1.5 million a day to convince Congress that a public option should not be part of health-care reform. And that is only the money that is being spent on lobbying. Millions more is spent on advertising. Where does that money come from? It comes from our premiums. Every million dollars spent to destroy the public option and to mold health-care legislation so that it favors insurance companies is a million dollars that is not being spent on patients. Karen Wagner ROLLING MEADOWS, ILL.

Shouldn't those who leech off our current health-care system with preventable illnesses caused by nongenetic obesity, smoking and alcohol abuse have to pay more than those of us who understand the painfully simple concepts of good health and prevention? Thaddeus Labhart, BURNS, ORE.

Opening the Racial Floodgates

I take offense to Ta-Nehisi Coates' article "When Race Matters" [Aug. 10]. Why is everyone overlooking the fact that Henry Louis Gates Jr. immediately started mouthing off and playing the race card? A cop's job is tough enough. Why couldn't he have simply answered the officer's questions and said, "Thanks for looking out for us"? Jimmy Doich, RALEIGH, N.C.

Though many Americans were extremely disappointed by the President's backtracking on his original remarks regarding the actions of the Cambridge police, in reality, to arrest a man in his own house is, in fact, stupid--particularly if he is only angry and is nonthreatening. We as a country are in turmoil when the masses are too immature to allow our distinguished and accomplished representatives to openly participate in intelligent, pointed dialogue about the incident. We need to continue a broader discussion of the race and class issues that still plague our society. Alison McDonald, PASADENA, CALIF.

Nuts to Netflix

Richard Corliss's article about Netflix was obviously written based on big-city experience [Aug. 10]. What about small-city dwellers and rural folks who do not have a large choice of movies or a movie theater nearby? I'm a big fan of Netflix. I've never had any delay in delivery, and I enjoy a wide choice of foreign movies, old and new. Netflix is a service I could not live without. Therese Namenek, LYNCHBURG, VA.