New Yorkers deserve healthcare that cares
Katonah, N.Y.: Caring for a loved one on Medicaid is a full-time job. My mother had dementia and Parkinson’s disease while I had two babies under 2, and without some support from Medicaid long-term care (MLTC) and nursing home transition and diversion (NHTD), she would not have lived to meet her grandkids or share quality time with her loved ones. It’s clear that these programs are less expensive for the state (because nursing homes are outrageous) and also prolong life.
The month my mom ended up needing rehab in a nursing home was when she went into hospice and only lived a week. Without the paycheck for me and my family and the ability to find the best people to care for her (via MLTC), it would have been impossible to honor this stage of life for her. I’m so at peace, and I believe she is too, because of the way it went before rehab. Cutting short the New York Health Act is a shame and disrespects our elders, let alone others with disabilities.
On another personal note, I was banned from care after my firstborn was stillborn and I almost died in delivery because United Healthcare had just acquired Optum, which made requesting my records impossible. I care deeply about holding insurance companies (especially ones that own medical centers) accountable. This bill apparently invests in that. It’s what we need.
Rachel Krause
Start small
Brooklyn: Far more important than the free grocery store with all of its issues, the mayor would best serve the city by fixing the streets and sidewalks.
Lloyd Cohen
Put him away
Staten Island: Nice job by Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz and her staff in getting basically a life sentence for the piece of garbage who murdered hero police officer Jonathan Diller. To get a sentence like that in a communist, radically left-wing city of liberal lunatics is truly amazing.
Thomas Fraumeni Jr.
Wrong crowd
Middle Village: Re “Rowdies damage NYPD vehicle in Qns. takeover” (April 19): I appreciate all the media coverage this horrible event has gotten. All the newspapers, including the Daily News, and television stations have been providing daily updates. But I hate when they call it drag racing, which is when two cars compete to see who is faster. The cars accelerate on a straight road for ¼ of a mile or less and are generally finished in 11 seconds or faster. That’s different from a street takeover, and gives legitimate racers a bad name. Similarly, this is not a car meetup. That’s another name for a car show, or cruise, where people park in a designated place and everyone walks around admiring each other’s vehicles. It requires permits and often insurance. Street takeovers are aggressive, dangerous and have nothing to do with an appreciation of cars.
Lee Rottenberg
Made a scene
Staten Island: Excellent op-ed regarding the taking advantage of long-time homeowners, particularly the elderly and those in gentrifying neighborhoods (“Treat deed theft like a real crime,” April 25). As noted, city marshals, deputy sheriffs, the NYPD and a legitimate judicial order of eviction were involved. Yet, Councilman Chi Ossé chose to get involved, physically obstructing law enforcement, with him ultimately being arrested. Had he just made a cursory inquiry as to what was going on instead of interfering, he would not have been arrested or had his photo-op. Then he wants to complain about it. Is this what he was elected for?
Brian O’Leary
Ubiquitous rhetoric
Ridgewood: “Shooter railed against Trump” (April 27). Who hasn’t?
L. Tuthill
Lack of preparation
Dix Hills, L.I.: Having been bombarded with endless reporting about the thwarted attack last weekend, I’m mystified at how the attacker wasn’t flagged before he arrived at a hotel the day before. About 30 years ago, we booked our annual family trip to the Bahamas for Thanksgiving. The prior September, we got a letter from the British government requesting a copy of everyone’s passports to do background checks on all hotel guests who’d be staying during that period because Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip would attend a reception there in a tent near the beach. Knowing the president and other government officials would attend the dinner, it was apparently too complicated to do background checks on hotel guests.
B. Lorge
Don protests too much
Bronx: I’ve listened to two presidents tell everyone on TV that they’re not a criminal. First, Richard M. Nixon in November 1973, when he famously claimed, “I am not a criminal.” Of course, the second and latest claim was by Donald Trump on CBS’s recent “60 Minutes” program when he said, “I am not a rapist.” My only question now is when will correspondent Norah O’Donnell be fired for having the audacity to ask our thin-skinned president a question related to Jeffrey Epstein when she mentioned that the gunman referenced the deceased pedophile in his vitriolic manifesto aimed at Trump and his administration?
Leon Bronstein
Near miss
Manhattan: Your photo caption “President Ronald Reagan winces and raises his left arm as he was shot by an assailant as he left a Washington hotel, Monday, March 30, 1981” (“Eerie echoes,” April 27) is incorrect. The photo merely shows his reaction to the sound of gunfire. The one bullet that subsequently struck him bounced off the doorframe of his limousine as he was being shoved in headfirst by the Secret Service.
Steven Forbis
Racing to the bottom
Chatham, N.J.: Trump is sinking due to his own dead weight: one military, diplomatic and political failure after another. His future value to historians will be as a model of hubris and ineptitude. All the gilded knick-knacks and grotesque monuments meant to show off his prowess as “peacemaker,” “builder” and “real estate genius” will be torn down and discarded. By any measurement, he ranks among history’s most prolific mass murderers, especially the safe-distance type typified by Xerxes, Hitler, Stalin and Putin, all specialists in cannon-fodder strategy and indiscriminate murder of their own troops and “enemy” civilians. Beginning with the elimination of USAID in Trump’s first month in office and subsequent military adventures, estimates of child deaths worldwide are conservatively reaching 1 million and will rise automatically due to famine, war and unchecked disease. The growing tally will be Trump’s monument.
Paul A. Denk
Senior eligibility
Rockaway Park: I heard that raising the draft age is being bandied about by the secretary of war. It should be raised to 79.
Maureen McNelis
Low blow
Pleasantville, N.Y.: How could any editor permit Bramhall’s cartoon as satire of Trump when it so closely resembles the 9/11 Memorial? Find something else to illustrate your contempt, not this image. It is jarring, unsettling and uncaring to the souls at this sacred place.
Thomas Casey