Insurers need to help solve the opioid crisis

Kudos to Attorney General Josh Shapiro for targeting the insurance industry in the opioid crisis (Jan. 4 Perspectives, “Fighting the Opioid Crisis”). I have long wondered why its role hasn’t been examined. Aetna and Independent Blue Cross can be applauded for addressing the issue. However, simply limiting the amount of opioid medication isn’t the answer. There must be affordable options for pain management available to all patients.

Mr. Shapiro correctly points out that insurers decide which treatments we can afford. They must, therefore, allow those with true pain issues access to alternatives to opioids. Too often opioids are the easiest and most affordable treatment. There are other options for pain management, but it is up to the insurer to allow for access.

Pain is real and it must be addressed. Insurance companies can lead the way to assuring that patients coping with pain have alternatives to opioid medications.

BETSY HAWLEY

Fox Chapel

For the public good

2017: A horrible, no-good, very bad year. In one phrase, I would describe 2017 as the year we turned our backs on the greater good.

Economic inequality continued to grow, making the divide between the haves and havenots so much greater. And the government chose to perpetuate it. The person charged with protecting the environment began programs to destroy it. Clean air and water became secondary to big business profits. He, unlike all the scientists, denied the existence of climate change and was not disturbed by it. Educating all children to their full capacity, which was the mandate in the No Child Left Behind program, was unimportant. Instead, helping forprofit schools and for-profit student loan companies was the guiding principle. Welcoming the “tired and poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free” became a fairy tale. We don’t want anyone from any other country to enjoy our opportunities.

The greater good( doing something that most likely will not benefit you but will many other people) will need to wait another year. 2017 has been a horrible, no-good, very bad year.

TASSIA PAGONIS MCCANN

Adams

Climate solutions

As I read the article about the president’s tweet conflating cold weather with climate (Dec. 29, “Trump says East Could Use Some ‘Global Warming’ This Weekend”), I was angered and saddened — saddened by the gleeful misunderstanding of science. Weather is a shortterm blip while climate is a long-term trend. A trend which 97 percent of climate scientists agree is changing due to human greenhouse gas emissions. I was angered by the actions taken this year by the president — leaving the Paris Accord, dismantling the Clean Power Plan, installing fossil fuel insiders instead of scientists at the EPA.

This year, I resolve not to despair, but to hope and to act. The bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus gives me hope. The Climate Solutions Caucus has 30 Republican and 30 Democratic members who will work on legislation, such as carbon fee and dividend, which will help us reduce our emissions. Fossil fuels would be taxed at the mine or port, and the proceeds would be rebated back to you and me to help with our utility bills. Let’s work together this new year to put the world’s climate back on a stable path.

DANA SILER

Squirrel Hill

Costly deer killing

Pennsylvania has 1.5 million white-tailed deer, which every year manage to recover from an incredible slaughter that advocates refer to as a hunting season. Mt. Lebanon’s commissioners decided in 2014 that they would rid the community of these creatures by means of all-out mass killings, and they were prepared to spend any amount in that effort.

We have now reached that amount. In the course of two aerial deer surveys, management time allotted to all things deer, police protection and escort of killing teams, plus the fees of the contractors, we have now surpassed the $1 million mark of our taxes being spent on nine consecutive failed slaughter campaigns.

The commissioners have now allotted $77,110 for 2018 for this purpose, according to the Dec. 1 story “Free Garbage Collection Eliminated for Some; Sharpshooting of Deer in 2018 Also Approved.” That’s the first step toward the second million dollars. This is an abomination, and it will not stop until we make it stop. Our commissioners have proved to be incapable of seeing the obvious and have ignored all information that has been presented to them over the years that has been contrary to their positions on this issue. We need to stop the bleeding now, or we will continue to be taxed for the commission’s ongoing failures.

Does $1 million mean anything to you?

WILLIAM L. HOON

Mt. Lebanon