A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
The Gazette, May 20, on obese people being denied health care:
The war on obesity has come to this: Some doctors refuse to treat fat people. This latest twist in the war on obesity—which some characterize as a war on fat people—provides a counter to the odd assertion that health care is a right. It is not. We have only the right to pursue health care.
For fat people, the United States has become a challenging culture. Partly it is due to the federal government’s increasing involvement in health care allocation and funding. When government takes responsibility for public health, authorities have an obligation to discourage and reduce dangerous and unhealthful lifestyles. That is one reason first lady Michelle Obama has made a cause of reducing childhood obesity; why schools are eliminating junk food from vending machines and cafeterias; and why we are taxing soda and candy.
Another factor in the war on obesity involves our country’s obsession with beauty. Most celebrities are gorgeous and thin, with the exception of a few who used to be thin before getting fat and going to work for Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers. Thin has always been in, but it is more in style today than ever before. As a result, it is considered acceptable to be openly hostile and dismissive of fat people.
“No fatties allowed? That seems to be the policy of some doctors in Florida,” said a May 17 story by CBS News.
A poll found that 14.2 percent of Ob/Gyn doctors surveyed refuse to treat obese patients, even if they are otherwise healthy. Though the poll was in Florida, it is a good bet doctors throughout the country discriminate against the obese. The survey found that doctors worry about fat patients damaging their exam tables. Others said fat patients pose difficult medical conditions.
“There’s more risk of something going wrong and more risk of getting sued,” said Dr. Albert Triana, of Miami.
Some medical ethicists are crying foul. The discrimination scandalizes fat and thin people alike. Morally, it may be wrong for a physician to turn away a fat person.
But this country has never passed a civil rights law to protect people from discrimination on a basis of weight. That is why Southwest and a few other airlines are starting to charge fat passengers for two seats. Federal law forbids major discrimination on a basis of race and gender, and other legal jurisdictions forbid discrimination based on religion, nationality, sexual orientation and an assortment of other factors. Few jurisdictions, if any, forbid discrimination on a basis of weight.
Fat people illustrate the important fact that Americans remain free to discriminate, which is a freedom we must have if we are to enjoy freedom of association and free speech. If we cannot discriminate against the fat, the hateful, the ugly, the homeless, the rich—or those who are rude and unkempt—we are deprived the ability to discern.
Doctors who refuse to treat fat people may be obnoxious, uncaring and unkind. But they practice medicine at will, on the patients they choose. Society cannot force one private person to serve another. That is why we cannot possibly have a “right” to health care while upholding the fundamental American tenets of freedom.
Editorial:
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Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald, May 23, on predictions that the world would end May 21:
If you are reading this, then you were not taken in Saturday’s rapture. That, or 2011 has joined the list of years known for Judgment Day predictions that didn’t come true: 1914, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1953, 1960, 1967, 1970, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1986-1989, 1991-2001, 2004, 2007 and 2008.
That’s just within the past 100 years, and a number of those later predictions are owned by Harold Camping, who made headlines with his prediction that 6 p.m. Saturday, May 21, would bring the Christian rapture and that the world would be destroyed Oct. 21.
It’s difficult not to find humor in this latest in a series of prophetic mispronouncements. Back in 1987, when R.E.M. sang “Six o’clock, TV hour. Don’t get caught in foreign towers,” were they really speaking of the end of the world as we know it?
Sadly, too many who follow the Harold Campings of the world sell their possessions, quit jobs and sever relationships in preparation for that hour they are certain will come. Doomsday predictions even lead some to contemplate suicide.
Tragic that so many stake their livelihoods and lives on such predictions, when Jesus himself (in Matthew 24) said a day and date could not be known.
Which leads us to today, Monday, May 23. It is, indeed, the end of the world as we know it, just as tomorrow will be, should it arrive.
Because it is the only day you have, here’s more advice from Matthew 24: Don’t be alarmed by what you see happening. Stand firm. Be faithful and wise
Editorial:
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STATE:
The Denver Post, May 23, on the need to boost infrastructure in the state:
Infrastructure is the kind of word that can make even the most civic-minded folks among us fall asleep with their eyes open.
Roads, bridges, and high-speed passenger rail are the sorts of things we take for granted. That’s what we pay taxes for, right? Someone will take care of that stuff.
However, it seems that hasn’t been the case—not here in Colorado or nationally.
A recent report from the Urban Land Institute says the United States is far behind much of the rest of the world in keeping up with infrastructure needs by having systematically underfunded such projects over the last 30 years.
Colorado has fallen in line with that trend, and lacks the resources to bend the curve. Given the federal budget crunch and funding cuts to states that are sure to come, it’s only going to get worse.
What’s the state to do?
A day of reckoning is coming in which Coloradans will have to reach some level of consensus on the government services we want, at the same time realizing they come with a pricetag.
Infrastructure has to be part of that conversation. That goes for education, both K-12 and higher education, social services and prison costs, too.
The Urban Land Institute study, released this week, says that other countries, particularly the emerging economic powerhouses of Brazil, China and India, have surged ahead of the U.S. in investing in infrastructure. While U.S. population has been steadily rising, spending on U.S. transportation and water infrastructure projects has been declining since 1960, when measured as a percentage of gross domestic product.
The nation would need to spend a breathtaking $2 trillion just to rebuild deteriorating roads, bridges, water lines, sewage treatment plants and dams.
In Colorado, the story is much the same.
In 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers released a report that said the state’s wastewater infrastructure needs an investment of $2.13 billion. And drinking-water infrastructure needs an investment of $5.32 billion over the next 20 years.
There are serious issues with Colorado’s highways, too.
Nearly 53 percent of highways in the state’s aging system are rated “poor” and 33 percent of highways need complete reconstruction.
State lawmakers approved FASTER in 2009, which upped vehicle registration fees to help repair dangerous bridges. While an important step, the millions it brings in are far less than what’s needed.
Colorado needs more than $1.5 billion in new highway money annually just to keep up. Revenues aren’t coming close to meeting that need.
Meanwhile, the state and the nation have been struggling through the lingering effects of a deep recession. Unemployment rates remain high, and the appetite for new taxes remains low. State government continues to slash budgets year after year and while the federal government has been on a spending spree, those days need to end, too.
Sometime soon, citizens will have to decide what kind of state and nation we want and how we’re going to pay for it.
The longer we wait, the more acute the problems will become.
Editorial:
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The Coloradoan, May 22, on the Click It or Ticket campaign:
What are the lives of 83 people worth?
Are they worth a few extra moments of consideration? A brief task, say, of buckling a seat belt?
We think they are. And so does the Colorado State Patrol, which launched its Click It or Ticket campaign today, which will last through June 5. The idea is to promote awareness of and compliance with seat-belt laws through the busy travel season surrounding Memorial Day. Increased enforcement and additional signage will be evident during this time period.
The CSP has been studying the effects of seat-belt usage and found that 166 people who were unrestrained died in vehicle crashes last year. Of those, half likely would have survived the crash had they worn seat belts, according to the CSP.
The State Patrol considers seat-belt usage the single most effective way to keep from being killed or seriously injured in a vehicle crash.
Two troubling trends have emerged from CSP’s study of seat-belt usage: Young men from 18-34 continue to be overrepresented in fatalities among unrestrained drivers and passengers, accounting for 68 percent of deaths; and people riding in pickup trucks and SUVs are most at risk of dying in a crash because of low seat-belt use and a high rate of rollover crashes. In 2010, 75 people died in sport utility vehicles in Colorado, and 75 percent were not buckled up. In pickup trucks, 61 people were killed and 67 percent were unrestrained.
Statistics are important, but personal experience is most powerful. Amy Nichols, who lost her 20-year-old son, Brandon, and his best friend Paul Ondrish in a crash in 2006, said during a Click It or Ticket launch event, “It only takes two seconds to buckle up, and that two seconds can change the lives of the ones you love forever. Seat-belt use has an impact on everyone in your life—our boys would be horrified to know the devastating effects their loss has had on the people they love and left behind to deal with it. As a mother, I urge you to start the habit of buckling up with your children and continue to remind them as teenagers and young adults of the potential devastation if they don’t wear a seat belt.”
Her words, borne from pain, are worth heeding.
Editorial:
