If it matters to you, act

Many people in our local community are distressed about the Kaiser-Permanente requirement that their customers get all of their maintenance drugs by mail order. This is problematic in a couple of ways.

First, nowadays pharmacists come with a Ph.D. They do more than count pills. In some of our rural areas they may well be the closest source of health care. Mail order prescription delivery doesn’t replace the service of a local drug store.

Second, cutting out local pharmacies hollows out our rural health care system, affecting all of us whether we get our insurance through Kaiser-Permanente or not.

My understanding is that Kaiser-Permanente customers must wait until November to change their insurance coverage.

Here are a few suggestions if you are concerned about this matter:

Talk with our District 9 state legislators Joe Schmick, Mark Schoesler and Mary Dye. Evidently there’s a bill in the state senate (SB5213) that intends to address the issue.

Get in touch with the state insurance commissioner’s office at insurance.wa.gov/get-help-insurance-problem. The insurance commissioner’s office also has a great program called SHIBA (State Health Insurance Benefits Advisors). Its trained volunteers work with individuals on insurance needs.

Some people believe that Kaiser-Permanente misled them about the new policy. I don’t know if that’s correct or not, but such a concern could certainly be shared with the state attorney general’s consumer protection division at (800) 551-4636. Complaints can also be filed online using their general consumer complaint form.

You can email Kaiser-Permanente at membershipparticipation@kp.org.

If this issue matters to you, do something about it.

Sue Hallett

Colfax

Column was appreciated

Becky Tallent’s column of Feb. 28 was a breath of fresh air. She wrote about one of the most important issues in journalism today — objectivity. Today we have news as entertainment and entertainment as news. Hannity, Colbert, Fox News, CNN and others freely mix news, editorials, and humor and drama.

One test that I was told in school was this: If after listening/reading/watching you can tell what side the journalist is on, that might be an editorial, if you can’t tell then that might be news.

Hal Vandevord

Pullman

Under the bus?

My take with the Pullman Chamber of Commerce meeting on March 1: Very good turnout. You could tell the overall sentiment of the room was not in favor of the proposed location of the (Pullman biodiesel) plant.

I believe the Port of Whitman is trying to pull a fast one. At the presentation, it showed how the hill where SEL is located has benefited the community and the county, but there seemed to be an indirect implication that if their current proposal is rejected, we will not be able to grow into the future.

While AgTech OS’ presentation sounded good, I fear there are several choke points to the whole process. But, in and of itself, I could see such a plant being built for our farmers — just not in the location where the port is proposing.

To me, it seemed the port basically threw AgTech OS under the bus as a way of deflecting the negativity that was palpable in the room. The AgTech OS people said as much. They are the tenants. They were offered this site. In other words, “Don’t blame us, blame them.”

By the way,, while Pullman is the largest community in Whitman County, why is it we have no representation on the board at all? Gerrymandering anybody?

Wayne Beebe

Pullman

Comparing downtown Moscow, Pullman

Walking in downtown Moscow yesterday, I compared it mentally to Pullman’s Main Street as I have many times, especially with the new Project Downtown proposals made public for upgrading Pullman’s three principal downtown streets.

Project Downtown’s expensive proposals miss the mark, in my opinion.

Moscow Main Street’s appeal for me is the absence of continual loud heavy truck traffic. This ended with the establishment of two one-way streets on either side of Moscow’s Main Street. Pullman has only one, Paradise Street, paralleling Main for a short way, but in the opposite direction of course. Grand Avenue has no alternative parallel diversion. I may not know civil engineering well enough to make an intelligent judgment, but my candid observation is that this change in Moscow’s downtown made several decades ago has been the biggest contributor to the community friendly feeling that pedestrians enjoy in contrast to the multilane crowded Main Street and Grand Avenue in Pullman

Kathy Warren

Moscow

The misnomer of studentloan debt forgiveness

The Biden student loan forgiveness is a misnomer. The executive branch of government does not have the power to forgive debt. That belongs to the legislative branch of government; this is what is meant by separation of powers. The executive branch needs to be honest with the American people. Loan forgiveness is a lie. It is transferring loan debt from someone who signed a contract who received the benefit of that loan to people who did not sign anything and are stuck paying for it. So are the American people willing to pay through tax increases for other people’s contract debt?

Kirk Koefod

Troy