Maybe a ‘truth squad’ could answer Forum questions

Maybe a ‘truth squad’ could answer Forum questions

EDITOR:

An Oct. 23 Vindicator editorial asks whether most people don’t care about the fate of Northside Medical Center, or just deny there are any consequences should Northside be dismembered and sold off.

Who can really blame our elected officials, university intellectuals, and civic leaders for their cluelessness about health care? Most are medically insured, and have been lulled to sleep and misled by powerful political lobbies that tell our medically insureds there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with our health care system. So it is that one well-meaning elected official shifted seamlessly from talking about Medicare to commercial health insurance at a public forum without recognizing they’re as different from one another as a 21st century Walmart is from a 1930s five-and-dime.

Is there anything that can give the Mahoning Valley’s leadership a clue about health care? Maybe not, butwhy wait for Washington to impose its own version of bureaucratic health care truth, when the tools for revealing that truth are right at hand? The story of Forum Northside is the coming story of American health care. So why not tell it?

In the post-apartheid period, South Africa assembled a truth and reconciliation commission, a way of assessing and evaluating civic responsibility without fear of punishment. Something of the same on a much smaller scale ought to be done for the situation at Forum Northside, at least in tone and purpose, and with good local and regional media coverage.

Who would I select to participate at the Forum Northside Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings? A mathematician with experience as a health insurance actuary who’s tied to neither government nor business, and an accountant with payroll experience. What would they say? I don’t know. Why not ask them?

JACK LABUSCH

Niles

Reason for outrage

EDITOR:

I am outraged that Mill Creek Park commissioners would “reward” the ex-park chief with $111,000 over the next 13 months. Even if his performance was satisfactory, this payment is outrageous. How anyone can attempt to justify this is beyond my comprehension.

As to the board, it may rest assured that I will not vote for any more park levies and will encourage all my friends and family members to vote likewise.

THOMAS MOREY

Canfield