Letters and Comments for January 10, 2009

Kilpatrick, Bare, Stein-Swanson, Reed

Appreciate road crew

To the Editor:

We want to thank the Union County road crew for rescuing us from a huge snow drift on Woodell Lane one Sunday morning as we were on our way to church.

They came along behind us and pulled us out of a difficult situation. A big thank you for their kindness and help. We appreciate all they do in working so hard trying to maintain open roads for us to travel.

Russell and Marlene Kilpatrick

La Grande

Drugs not covered

To the Editor:

Grande Ronde Hospital now has a new policy that charges our senior citizens for medications while in the emergency room and are not covered by Medicare. I recently took my legally-blind mother to the emergency room for extreme nausea and vomiting.

She is diabetic, on oxygen and was unable to keep down any of her medications. After eight hours in the ER, I finally took her home to provide the same services that she was receiving in the hospital. To my surprise, we later received a bill from the hospital for over $700 of “self-administrable drugs.”

After contacting the hospital, I was told I needed to take this up with Medicare. Medicare informed me it was the way the hospital coded the billing.

I again contacted the hospital and was told it was a Medicare problem and I needed to deal with them. I filed an appeal with Medicare and lost because the hospital would not change the billing code.

I again contacted the hospital and informed them that it was indeed a nurse that administered my mother’s meds, that my mother is legally blind and unable to administer her own medications. After still refusing to change the billing, I asked why we were not informed prior to taking the meds that Medicare would not pay for the medications and we would be responsible for the cost. I was then told that we should have read our Medicare handbook. Well, I came home and read the handbook and could not find anything in regards to “self-administered drugs.”

So seniors, beware. You may have to pay out of your pocket for some medications Grande Ronde Hospital gives you. Just one more way our medical system is taking advantage of those who can least afford it.

Melody Bare

Union

Need to relocate

To the Editor:

I have lived in Telocaset over 25 years. Besides the fact that we and the Thurstons were not originally notified of the Elkhorn Wind Project and that the county just got away with it, we made a mistake. We are getting ill effects from these towers. I was told by Bob Sallinger of the Audubon Society that you have the power to do anything about the wind project.

I have been leaving the area for weeks at a time, but that is expensive. With winter here, it is too dangerous to drive. Both of our families have suffered loss of sleep and have experienced stress. Rod had gotten sick and when he left, he felt better. I have gotten chest pains, sleepless nights, ear and throat pains. These things go away when I leave.

My face and eyes swelled up the first week these things came on Dec. 6, 2007. No doubt they were throwing off some pollution from the new wind blades.

Our lives are a living hell. Knowing that the bats are being and have been killed, the countless birds that will die and the animals’ migratory route changed, leaves us heartsick. The county has killed our once-beautiful Telocaset and left us in a waste and industrial land.

I am asking for help. If you can remove these things, please do so. If you have no longer any control about our once-great valley, then help us stay away from these things until the good Lord can rid them from this earth.

We do not wish to sell our homes. We were told no one would buy them and we wish not to endanger others. We do not have enough money to move and we lived out here for what it was — a pristine place and a blessing.

We want (the county) to provide funds to help us relocate until these things go away. We have to have enough to move to a place that is equal to all the love and time we put into our homes. They are worth the world to us.

Fay Stein-Swanson

Union

People need to work

To the Editor:

In response to Mary McCracken’s recent letter, I agree environmentalists are not to blame for today’s state of decline in our national forests. Radical environmentalism and activist judges that halt forest projects dead in their tracks are the problem. True environmentalists shouldn’t support or allow groups such as La Grande’s own Hells Canyon Preservation Council to halt logging projects due to potential fuzzy critter habitat.

Radical environmentalists have lost their credibility with their stance on the spotted owl. It’s not entirely the loss of old growth forests that has affected spotted owl numbers. The barred owl is the bigger and stronger cousin to Spotty and is killing them in record numbers. Is this not evolution? Only the strong shall survive?

McCracken suggests publishing before and after pictures of Forest Capital clearcuts. I imagine she wants to show the devastation. Forest Capital is great about replanting usually less than one year after harvest. Why no desire to publish pictures of five-, 10- or even 15-year-old clearcuts. The images of vast regeneration would dampen the anger at what was previously considered a permanent loss of forestland.

Do you feel compassion for the citizens who lost their jobs at the Wallowa Forest Products sawmill due largely to a lack of federal timber? Our family and friends are being forced to leave our own community because of these logging appeals.

The lumber markets will rebound in time and our local sawmills will have to be supplied with wood from our federal forests or they will meet the same fate. Right now people need to work. Logging sales pump much-needed tax revenue into our hurting schools, businesses and local economy. This is a fact.

The dead and dying federal forests are out there for all to see.

Let’s get to work.

Jesse Reed

Union