Letters to the Editor

OPINION:

Pass health IT now

Your March 3 editorial “Advancing health IT,” while making a strong case for the enormous value of health information technologies, failed to mention that prompt passage of legislation pending in Congress is critical to the widespread and successful adoption of such technologies.

The initiation of programs such as the Google Health Web service and various regional and state-based efforts highlight the growing public hunger for various forms of health IT. Nationally, health IT has the potential to save $165 billion annually from increased efficiencies and dramatically improved health outcomes. However, uncontrolled proliferation of incompatible systems would quickly compromise its potential. There is an immediate need for uniform standards to ensure the interoperability of existing and future programs.

Thanks to the hard bipartisan work of Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, ranking member Sen. Michael B. Enzi, Wyoming Republican, and many others, legislation calling for a national health IT system has been written and vetted and stands ready for passage. The Kennedy-Enzi bill wisely would apply to the private sector as well. The public and private sector would benefit from this legislation.

Business Roundtable member CEOs, who provide health insurance for almost a quarter of all Americans who are covered in the private sector, stand ready to drive quick implementation of electronic medical records, but we can’t until we have clear and uniform interoperable standards.

We cannot wait any longer. The hard work is already done. Congress must pass health IT now.

JOHN CASTELLANI

President

Business Roundtable

Washington

The new ’third rail’ of politics

In Wednesday’s editorial “The price of oil,” you point out that the price of oil has quintupled in the past six years and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will not increase production (and neither will we), affecting all segments of our economy.

The vulnerability in the United States of insufficient refining capacity and our reluctance to extract more crude from our own land increases our dependence on OPEC.

Corn-based ethanol has raised the price of gasoline and, generally, raised the cost of food. Yet this alarming situation raises no alarms — no candidate for president dares discuss this. Has this become the new “third rail” of politics?

PETER SOUR

Sewickley, Pa.

A debate that’s way too loud

Danish efforts to discourage the screening of Geert Wilders’ film (“TV stations refuse anti-Muslim film,” World, Friday) may diminish the risk for violence but miss the greater risk of growing intolerance.

In recent months, Mr. Wilders has called for Dutch Muslims to renounce their religion or leave the country and has labeled the Koran a fascist book. Though the Netherlands has remained mainly tolerant, Mr. Wilders and his supporters threaten to shift attitudes toward a perception of mismatching values and identities between Muslim immigrants and the country’s citizens.

Dutch officials should initiate community dialogue efforts to reduce tensions and bolster a diminishing middle in this heated debate. Otherwise the country faces a dangerous situation as the volume of extreme voices on both sides rapidly increases.

MARCI MOBERG

Analyst

Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution

George Mason University

Arlington

’Israel’s crimes’

At least 20 Palestinians, including four children playing soccer, were killed by the Israeli military in a one-day missile barrage (“Israeli air strikes kill 20,” World, Feb. 29). These deaths resulted when Israel retaliated for the death of one Israeli college student from Palestinian rocket fire outside Sderot, Israel, the day before — after Israeli missiles had killed 12 Palestinians on the previous day.

It seems that this seesaw retaliation will never end, not as long as Israel continues its brutal and illegal occupation.

The Senate and House Appropriations subcommittees on state, foreign operations and related programs are preparing to vote on President Bush’s $30 billion increase in military aid to Israel, which currently receives approximately $3.3 billion in annual federal aid.

Mr. Bush promised in his State of the Union address that he will end the spending of taxpayer money on “wasteful or bloated” programs. Not only is this additional foreign aid to Israel a “wasteful and bloated” program, but it also is illegal and immoral. It’s illegal because Israel uses this military aid in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act to violate the human rights of Palestinians through its brutal military occupation and siege of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip. It’s immoral because the Israeli siege and occupation of Palestinians — and the humanitarian crises they are causing — are enforced with U.S. weapons, making every U.S. taxpayer an accessory to Israel’s crimes.

We don’t have the money to fix falling bridges in America, but it seems we always have enough money when it comes to Israel.

BRIG. GEN. JAMES J. DAVID

Army (retired)

Marietta, Ga.

The right to bear arms

Wednesday’s Commentary column by Edwin Yoder Jr., “Bearing arms and verbal harms,” shows ignorance of the English language as well as of a bit of history.

The word “people” is plural, meaning multiple individuals, not collective, as he argues. Were his meaning to be ascribed to it, the right of “the people” to peaceably petition government under the First Amendment would be just a collective rather than the individual right we know it to be; the right of “the people” to be free from unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment would be just a collective right, applying I guess only to group homes; and the powers restricted to “the people” under the 10th Amendment would apply only collectively, no individual having a right to vote separately.

Further, it should be remembered that an 18th-century militia was composed of individuals who were required to furnish their own weapons and ammunition. The existence of a militia was not a precondition to readiness to participate in one. Finally, the Bill of Rights restates the rights of individuals, not organizations.

PETE FARRIS

St. Michaels, Md.

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In his Wednesday Commentary column, Edwin Yoder Jr. maintains that the writers of the Bill of Rights used the words “the people” when defining rights that pertain only to groups and the word “person” when defining individual rights.

The writers could have used the word “everyone” instead of “the people” everywhere in the Bill of Rights. That would not be as rhetorically pleasing but would clearly show that the right applies to all the individual persons. The writers’ choice of grand language should not be used to subvert their meaning.

THOMAS P. O’CONNOR

Fairfax