Bad Medicine, No Medicine


On Jan. 15, after months of work by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, Director of the Monterey County Health Department Ray Bullick, Natividad Medical Center CEO Harry Weis and with public support, the supervisors unanimously approved the implementation of the State of California’s Low Income Health Plan (LIHP) for those with incomes up to 100 percent of the federal poverty level (approximately $12,000 per year). The LIHP will serve as a bridge to the Affordable Care Act, which goes into effect in 2014.


While the program was to have started enrolling participants in February, this has not happened. My request to the supervisors and Messrs. Bullick and Weis is that the LIHP be implemented now.


I am a physician and know the health consequences of untreated and inadequately treated chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure. The personal and family suffering is significant. In addition, the financial impact of unpaid medical and other bills on the family because of time lost from work, as well as the loss of productivity for the county, is substantial.


Eleven months of health insurance will make a difference. Please start the LIHP now. - Art Schuller, MD | Carmel Valley


(Editor’s note: The state rejected the county’s approved $3.4 million plan; due to a miscalculation, the actual cost of implementation is estimated at $5.8 million.)


Guns-N-Ammo


Well, I must admit I’m sorry see Sheriff Scott Miller joining the politically correct bandwagon (“Salinas police chief decries the acceptance of gun violence,” Feb. 7-13). Hopefully he was horribly misquoted. You cannot stop bad guys with laws that the criminals will not follow.


Serial numbers on ammo? Really? Does anyone have any idea what the implementation cost for something like that would be?! 


It is very easy for the law enforcement community to pony up these fine ideas – they don’t have to follow them!


Go into the gun store in Salinas; you’ll find a whole lotta “Law Enforcement Only” guns for sale. Ammunition is provided to the police free of charge, free to them at least.


I gotta find mine where I can, and it’s expensive. Law enforcement is so absolutely on the wrong side of this issue it’s not funny.


Sheriff Miller, Salinas Police Chief Kelly McMillin, I’m not your enemy. I’m not the guy killing kids or cops, or anything else for that matter. I’m the recreational shooter who will be the guy paying and paying and paying for these laws you love so much.


If you think these ideas are so wonderful, recommend all police immediately stop getting law-enforcement-only guns and buy them off the counter like everyone else. I recommend that the sheriffs and police be required to buy their own ammo for training and otherwise at the gun store like I do. No special deals or breaks. And no tax credits.


Live in my world, because as a resident of Salinas, I can say I already live in yours. I’m the guy the criminals are trying to get to; you’re the guy they are running from. - Vandikar1 | via Web


Mo’ BettA Bev Mo


To Supervisor Dave Potter: Maybe some Carmel residents can afford to buy 12-packs, bottles of wine and fifths of alcohol at Bruno’s on a regular basis, but me, personally, I would love a BevMo! (“Carmel residents, supervisors sour on BevMo! coming to town,” posted Feb. 6). 


Bruno’s, and all the other Carmel stores, are overpriced (for understandable reasons). BevMo! offers a wider selection at lower and more competitive prices. Also, if your concern is that there are “enough” places to buy alcohol as it is, and fear that any additional places to buy alcohol will possibly be detrimental to the citizens/students of the area, then it is obvious that your opinion of the citizens/students in the area is that they are weak, or somehow mysteriously alcoholic. 


If you believe opening up another place to buy alcohol could create problems, then maybe you could better direct your attention to focusing on why your citizens/students are so susceptible. And, if you want to be statistical, let’s face it, where do most minors obtain their alcohol? Older friends and family members. Also, I don’t believe that BevMo! will find it very “profitable” to sell to underage consumers. 


It is not your job to control our ability to buy alcohol conveniently and at a competitive rate (without having to drive to Salinas). It is not your job to stall or prevent businesses from opening or expanding in the free market. I am a Carmel resident, so please add me to your statistics when you reference your “concerned citizens.”


On a side note, I don’t see how opening a BevMo! will be at all detrimental to Bruno’s and the other grocery stores in Carmel. Dave, do you do 100 percent of your grocery shopping at Bruno’s? I doubt it. I bet if you are hungry, or out of butter, need an extra vegetable for dinner or decide to buy a six-pack, you run to Bruno’s… as do I. But I bet that when it comes time to cross off your weekly grocery list, you go to Save Mart or Safeway like the rest of us. So what’s the harm in a BevMo!? - A “Concerned” Carmel-by-the-Sea Resident | via Web


Cannabis Class


It is obvious that there are not any cannabis horticulture classes at either CSU-Monterey Bay or Monterey Peninsula College (“The vision of Marina as a medical-marijuana has one big problem: a government unwilling to take the plunge,” Jan. 31-Feb. 6). The author made it quite clear that those ideas are what [Coasterdam’s founders] envision for the future. In fact, the next sentence speaks in a future tense about opening a dispensary. I don’t understand how people could be confused unless they stop reading halfway through the second paragraph.


Either way, we should be discussing the merits of the ideas espoused in the article, not grammatical issues that a minority may become confused by. 


I think this author did an amazing job at showing the hypocrisy of the ban in Marina. In addition, the police chief is talking about enforcing federal laws regarding marijuana. However, federal laws should be enforced by the executive branch of the federal government. If that was not the case, we should also be rounding up illegal immigrants and spending money we don’t have enforcing other federal laws. This is clearly political cherry picking.


In the end, this article shows the hypocrisy of a state government that won’t even follow the will of its own people that was properly conveyed via public referendum almost two decades ago.


Let us have a good, friendly debate on the actual issues. - Davy | via Web