DEPRIVING KIDS PUTS OUR FUTURE AT RISK

This letter is in response to Robert Cowie of Kaneohe. Thank you. At least someone gets it. Professional athletes make millions. Doctors and lawyers make hundreds of thousands. Teachers? Barely enough to live here and pay rent. I've been teaching here for nine years and the only thing I have to show for it is the appreciation from my students and their parents.

When will people realize that the problems our society is facing can be directly attributed to the quality of education our kids are getting? When times get tough, who do we cut? Those who can afford it the least, and I'm not talking about the teachers. We take from our children — our future. These will be the kids growing up to solve the problems we all face. So cut from them at your own risk.

I don't expect to be paid much more than I am currently. I don't expect to be going backwards financially either, however. When will the U.S. and Hawaii see that if we really value our children we need to start showing it?

joshua lawrence | Honolulu

FURLOUGHS

HOPEFULLY, CHANGE WILL EFFECT OVERHAUL

On the surface, the issue of teacher furlough days sounds as if it is doomsday for the health of the Hawaii public education system. Lost educational time for our children does not sound very good. But I wonder if this will lead to opening an even broader issue than we realize. Sure, it is easy to blame government for the failure of providing an adequate education for our children, but have we asked ourselves as a community and parents what we can do to support the school system?

Hopefully, these upcoming furlough days will really push the public to look at the root problem of the educational system. The bureaucratic educational system needs to be streamlined and reduced so that funding goes to where it is needed most, the children. Parents need to take more responsibility for their child's education and provide the support to teachers who educate them.

The furlough days were just the start to a quick way to pay for the educational system but will ultimately lead to the public asking more questions as to what are the other issues that need to be addressed as a result of it. I hope this will lead to further changes in the educational system as well as making the parents more responsible for their own children's education.

joni kamiya | Käneohe

HEALTH CARE

DISMANTLING SYSTEM IS NOT WAY TO FIX IT

Dr. Josh Green (Island Voices, Oct. 15) does not speak for the majority of physicians I know or for my peers. He says the U.S. pays more but gets less for the money. Excuse me? In my little hospital if you come to the ER with chest pain and are found to have a blocked artery you are at a Honolulu hospital the next day for a stent or bypass. You don't get that kind of care in Europe or Canada.

Dr. Green says that health care is dominated by private insurance, whose profits depend on excluding people from the system. Yet Medicare often does not cover procedures out of concerns for increased costs. Already people are excluded and rationed by the Medicare system.

Dismantling the best medical care system in the world is not the way to fix health care. Why can't there be real tort reform that lowers the practice of defensive medicine and lowers malpractice insurance premiums? Why can't we allow insurance companies to compete across state lines? GEICO health insurance. Or we could see ads with the Progressive girl selling health care insurance.

The current House and Senate bills will ruin our health care system if passed.

gary ropert | Radiology director, Wahiawa General Hospital

BUDGET CUTS

TIME TO FOCUS ON IMPROVING REVENUE

The Hawaii State Constitution demands that the state budget be balanced. Consequently, numerous cost-cutting actions are being mandated. I can't help but think about the other side of this equation:  Why not just improve state revenue, which would obviate the need for so many cost-cutting actions that will have undesirable consequences for too many Hawaii families?

For example, why not allow gambling and entertainment offshore? The gambling industries from Macau to Las Vegas have a steady billions-of-dollars income stream. I suspect this could be easily implemented, by just using available cruise ships.

This type of endeavor would get our children back to full-time schools with perhaps even a raise for their instructors. Also, permits for this activity could be canceled (with sufficient notice) if undesirable side effects appear, so it's not something cast in concrete.

milt allione | Kailua

SUPREME COURT

JUSTICES SHOULD USE LIFE EXPERIENCES

I was amused by the fact that during the confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, several senators feigned shock and indignation that Sotomayor alluded to the fact that her race and gender could have a bearing on how she ruled on issues of law. Of course they would!

If judges on the Supreme Court are supposed to make rulings on law without influence of their race, gender, social status, or any other defining characteristic, then we should be satisfied with nine white men on the bench or for that matter nine black women (likely chance of that).

But we would not be. We would be concerned, and rightly so, that the bench lacked balance. And by balance we would mean that the nine justices would have different perspectives based on their life experiences, a large part of which would have been shaped by their gender and race.

To suggest that, as human beings, any of us do not view the world based on our own experiences, is to be totally disingenuous or moronic.

MARK DOO | Honolulu