Your Dec. 27 editorial begins by saying, "President Bill Clinton has given millions of Americans a holiday gift in the form of unexpectedly tough rules to protect the privacy of medical records." The lack of thoughtfulness and logic increases from there.
Putting Clinton or some other bureaucrat in charge of protecting my medical records feels more like coal in the stocking than a holiday gift. As Solveig Singleton of the libertarian Cato Institute wrote, "Many Americans have legitimate concerns about the privacy of their medical records -- and the primary threat to that privacy is the growing interference by government with medical markets." There are two common results of every government venture into health care so far: soaring costs and fraud. The government wants to address the fraud problem by having more and more access to our medical records. This is called privacy?
Government poses a unique and special danger to privacy, because only it has the power to control the armies, police and courts. For this reason, the Constitution of the United States carefully limits the power of government, including the power to snoop.
It is not necessary for Clinton to push some "medical bill of rights" on Americans as part of his effort to build his "legacy." What is necessary is that the original restrictions on government covered by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights be taken seriously, especially when the growth of government further hinders essential industries such as health care.Tim Perman
Redmond
RELIGION IN THE WHITE HOUSEIntent of First Amendment spelled out in ConstitutionWhy is the opinion of someone such as Helen Thomas considered credible when that opinion is based on a falsehood?
Her lengthy column on a religious Bush White House (P-I, Dec. 26) is founded on the all too common (often deliberate) misinterpretation of the First Amendment.
The First Amendment has nothing to do with the government establishing religion, anymore than it does of establishing a government press. The First Amendment guarantees that the government cannot interfere with the establishment and practice of religion by the people.
For anyone interested in the true facts, the intended separation of church and state, i.e., an official religion such as the Church of England, is spelled out in Provision 3 of Article 6 of the Constitution.
Only the intellectually blind, or brain dead, would deny that the Christian religion was the religion of the Founding Fathers.Nick Shultz
Lake Forest Park
SOUND TRANSIT
Pricey rail system will disrupt all in its pathWhat did they know and when did they know it? I'm not talking about Whitewater or Watergate. I'm talking about our own little Seattle scandal to be, which I call "transcam."
Sound Transit's over-budget multibillion-dollar light rail system admittedly will offer no relief from traffic congestion, will cost far more than we voted to approve and will take an additional three years to build, disrupting everything in its path for nearly 10 years. And now we know it.
Why am I not surprised that now two of its most highly visible and vocal board members, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell and King County Executive Ron Sims, are suddenly silent?
It is time for a full and open investigation into exactly why elected officials/board members have attempted, under the cloak of the credibility of their offices, to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on a scam that they knew or should have known would not deliver as promised.Virgil Howard
SeattleExpansion of monorail only cure for ailing transit planI often have to ride the bus for 45 minutes to get to games or events or home after work. I spend two minutes, and a few blocks walking, on the same journey via monorail, and as the price is the same, I've begun to commute both ways using the monorail.
Enough boondoggles with deep underground tunnels and light rail clogging our further-clogged streets. Expand the monorail to Rainier/Beacon Hill, West Seattle, Phinney Ridge and Northgate. Lack of decent public transit will keep Seattle in the also-ran, second-rate list of great cities, and we're headed for third-rate. It's time for the P-I to do some civic good and get behind what has become the only logical, rational alternative to the light rail disaster.Bart Swanke
SeattleGrade-level proposals deserve failing marksApparently everybody agrees Seattle needs a decent mass transit system. However, some so-called traffic engineers and other self-styled experts are still naive enough to promote more roads and rails. They fail to realize our urban surfaces are already overtaxed, as ambulances and vital delivery vehicles get stuck in traffic.
It is time to admit that in congested urban areas a surface mass transportation system is unacceptable and a thing of the past. The only reasonable mass transit system has to be either below or above the surface. Apparently the electorate agrees, as the voters overwhelmingly approved a proposed monorail system. However, the voters got the two stadiums crammed down their throats instead. It did not matter that the stadium issues were defeated at the polls.
Lately the more reasonable monorail systems have gained growing popularity, and in many municipalities the mass transportation uses a combination of the two. There are more than 100 subway or monorail cities in the world and their number is growing.
Many are much smaller than Seattle, like Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, B.C., Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki and even Dallas started a subway recently. How can these cities manage it without great Seattle industries like Microsoft, Boeing and many others?
Perhaps we should replace our engineers and administrators with people from these municipalities to show us how it is done.Kenneth M. Gorshkow
Seattle
ELECTORAL SYSTEMBipartisan input, leadership needed to fix voting processIt is an ominous sign when George W. Bush's first priority is a $1.3 trillion tax cut, much of it going to the already wealthy. He talks the politics of reconciliation but acts on the politics of greed.
Most people want the wealth gap narrowed, not widened. They want more services, funding for everything from trails to education to rapid transit, not giveaways to the rich.
Here's what Bush could do if he really wants reconciliation, not more political warfare. Invite Al Gore and congressional leaders from both parties to join him in sponsoring a complete national overhaul of our electoral system. If ever there was a good time to abolish the electoral college, this is it. No more Floridas!
Then let voters rank candidates in all federal elections, with the winner determined by instant runoff voting. This will give much more visibility to third party candidates, increasing voter satisfaction and turnout.
Add to this nationally financed voting machines in every precinct. An intelligent voting machine could easily detect most voter errors and give opportunity for immediate correction. Paper copies could be printed and stored as a protection against fraud. Uniform recount and verificaiton procedures could be established.
It's time to give voters more choices and to guarantee their votes will be counted exactly as intended. And it won't happen without bipartisan leadership.Dick Burkhart
Seattle
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