Friday Letters: Beware false equivalence between Clinton, Trump

Hillary Clinton is not my favorite politician by a long shot and not my first choice for president. But right now she is the only choice.

S.E. Cupp, in her column on Thursday, created a gross false equivalency between Clinton’s significant prevarications and Donald Trump’s endless, grotesque, immature, bald-faced lies that continually demonstrate his lack of connection to reality. “Conservatives believe,” Cupp writes, that Clinton lied following the Benghazi attacks? That’s the biggest lie, really? Conservatives “believe” that Vince Foster was murdered. Conservatives “believe” that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Cupp’s comparison is disingenuous and a disservice.

Michael Hart, West Ridge

Beware of what ‘sounds good’

I have to laugh when ‘Trumpeters’ explain why they support Trump: “He sounds like he knows what will make America great again.” “He’s refreshing.” “He’s a truth teller.” “He’s telling it like it is.”

When asked what makes good music, Duke Ellington said: “If it sounds good…it is good.” That apt observation about music does not apply to The Donald.

Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn

Too many commercials

After watching 10 minutes of a TV program, the commercials come on for 15 minutes. At the beginning of some programs, they actually say they modified the program to fit in more commercials.

Can’t the Federal Communications Commission stop consumers from being tortured by the number of these commercials?

Dan Serritella, Palos Park

Prior authorization would be mistake

Medicare’s home health benefit is widely regarded as a clinically appropriate and cost-effective health care setting preferred by American seniors.

As seniors manage chronic conditions and myriad health challenges that arise while aging, Medicare’s home health benefit offers seniors access to care that keeps patients at home — and out of the hospital. Despite the clinical and fiscal benefits of home health, Medicare would like to require prior authorization of home health services. This means that after a patient’s physician prescribes home health, a government bureaucrat will be charged with reviewing the order and deciding if the care is warranted and approved. All the while, a sick and weak senior is at home, with no medical supervision, waiting for Medicare to approve his or her care.

Considering that many patients are prescribed home health care when leaving the hospital, a prior authorization requirement is even more troubling. Physicians prescribe home health with the goal of ensuring patients heal properly and safely under the supervision of home health clinicians so patients don’t experience repeat hospitalizations. Medicare’s idea to create lengthy delays for home health directly contradicts its commitment to reducing hospital costs through patient-centered care.

While Medicare hopes this policy would reduce fraud and abuse in the home health sector, there is no evidence prior authorization would deter bad actors from taking advantage of the system. Instead, policy makers should look for targeted solutions that promote program integrity while protecting patient access to timely, safe and clinically effective home health.

Brenda Neeble, Wheaton

There is hope

There is hope. The United States and Vietnam and the United States and Cuba have been making fascinating, courageous efforts to let bygones by bygones. Such notable efforts require vision and commitment.

We are reminded that to all things there is a season and that the only thing permanent is change. Furthermore, it is paramount to know and remember that one’s history does not imply one’s destiny.

Now, if only other nations of the world could learn how to reclaim and create improved relationships, what a planet we might inhabit. But, I’ve always been a bit of a dreamer.

Leon J. Hoffman, Lake View