To the editor: Open up all of Ohio now
Fri, 22 May 2020 04:00:00 GMT
link -- with images
Like all of you, I have been trying to keep up to date on the federal news and Ohio news via Gov. Mike DeWine and all his orders.
The governor’s orders are more troubling because they keep changing as they move the goal posts. I find it more and more difficult to listen to Governor DeWine and his cohorts tell us over and over again that “we are all in this together.” Who are they kidding? They could not be more mistaken.
The governor, the senators, and the representatives and all of the governor’s administrative people are all getting paid. They are getting paid and the people, us, are not getting paid. Could there be a greater difference between us and the people who were voted into office and are now telling us who can work and who cannot work than that? Of course not.
Does the governor not know that life is one big risk? From the time we are born, we soon learn that we will die someday. Let the people decide on the risks we are willing to take. Open the state.
PATTI BUXTON
South Toledo
DeWine, Acton superb
I think the Ohio representatives who are trying to impeach Gov. Mike DeWine and stop Dr. Amy Acton’s actions are jealous of the positive publicity they are getting nationally.
Both are doing an excellent job in these unprecedented and very difficult times. I am impressed that Governor DeWine set up committees representing various professions to plan. Retailers helped plan for stores opening, restaurant owners helped decide what actions are best for them, school personnel contributed to the decisions for the schools.
It is refreshing that he knows he doesn’t know everything and is willing to get input and work cooperatively. And who better to give health mandates than physicians, rather than politicians? So why the complaints? I say thank you to Governor DeWine and Dr. Acton, and I hope the voters remember who is committed to our well-being and who is only interested in politics.
BARBARA DOANE
Whitehouse
Stay strong, St. Luke’s
Michigan-based McLaren Health Care, the new owner of St. Luke’s Medical Center in Maumee, probably is still nursing a not-very-friendly poke in the eye from ProMedica Health System with its May 14 announcement that it plans to build a freestanding emergency room on Anthony Wayne Trail within a tongue depressor of the medical center and its emergency department.
Even though a 2014 federal court order upheld a previous ruling by the Federal Trade Commission that required ProMedica to give up control of St. Luke’s, the health system apparently still hungrily covets the Maumee ZIP code, where more patients are privately insured, have good incomes, and have fewer Medicaid reimbursements.
Depending on your viewpoint, ProMedica’s new facility will offer competition or a wasteful duplication of services.
Let’s see if McLaren leaders are up to the challenge and made of sterner stuff than, say, the University of Toledo board of trustees, so that St. Luke’s doesn’t suffer the same financial ignominy as University of Toledo Medical Center.
JIM WINKLER
Gainesville, Fla.