Letters to the Editor | Monday, Dec. 17, 2018
Hard to see a psychiatrist here
As one with bipolar disease, I have been an advocate for mental illness for six years. I have connected with many advocates, those afflicted and the family members of those with all types of mental illness. I have tried so very hard to get many into a psychiatrist. There are six psychiatrists who will not see Medicare patients, even with a supplemental plan. They will only see PPOs, or patients on HMO panels for which they are a provider.
I have one elderly retired doctor who lives in Modesto who has been seeing a Berkeley psychiatrist for years. The trip back and forth has become arduous, but he has been turned away from these six.
Such attitudes are atrocious for two reasons. Those over 65 have the highest incidence of suicide per 100,000. Secondly, Medicare-eligible folks are my peers who lived and died in Vietnam and Korea and have not found adequate care in the VA system. Shame, shame on you!
Dr. Paul Golden, Modesto
Throwing money won’t solve issue
There is no doubt that homelessness is a problem in Stanislaus County. However, when I see that we are about to allocate millions of dollars to the problem I want to pull out my hair. We do not know how to solve many of the causes of homelessness, so why are we throwing huge amounts of money at this problem? Many of the homeless are not fixable. Many don’t want to be fixed, and those who do have a host of programs to assist them. We feel bad or guilty so we throw money at the problem(s) to assuage our guilt.
John E. Arnold, Modesto
Ceres council should be ashamed
The Ceres city council unanimously rejected funds for a homeless shelter. Their comments were that the homeless need to take responsibility for themselves and that a shelter would act as a magnet for more homeless persons. Such comments show an astonishing ignorance of the causes of homelessness as well as a heartlessness and complete lack of empathy. As a citizen of Ceres, I am ashamed of my city council.
Jack Waldorf, Ceres
It’s a different wall Trump will see
“Who’s going to pay for the wall?” That was the mantra of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump sold enough people with his slogan to win an Electoral College victory. Now, it looks like he is in very serious political and legal trouble with Robert Mueller’s Russian investigation and with the feds in the South Manhattan District of New York.
So, who’s really going to pay for the wall? Trump is going to pay for the wall … but not in a monetary sense. He’ll pay in sleepless nights, concerns for family members’ legal liabilities, impeachment, prosecution, jail time.
Randy Little, Turlock