Columnist gets it right over and over

I may not be a great writer, but I know one when I read one. Kudos to Fred McKinney for his two recent articles on the opinion page. The first, from Jan. 9, was headlined “Paying for ignorance of other Americans.” Vaccines have been readily available for over a year now and it is a proven fact, just like our previous presidential election, vaccines save lives. Insurance companies raise your premium if you are in a higherrisk category. You, as an individual, pay for assuming that additional risk. The general public does not subsidize that individual right. So why is the general public subsidizing ignorance (Fred’s words, not mine)? We, logical, “intelligent” Americans who got vaccinated are helping to pay for the additional medical bills of the unvaccinated and uninsured. Doesn’t sound fair to me.

Article number two was headlined “Changing how we elect members of U.S. Congress.” I may sound biased, but I’ve had a very low opinion, for a long time, of our representatives in Washington. Are our representative answering a calling or pursuing a professional career, with better benefits, better pensions (why aren’t they on Social Security too), pandering to lobbyists, and on and on. And what have they done for us as nation? I can’t think of one thing our senators or reps have done recently for us, you and me, as a state. John Adams, a Founding Father, paid his own way to Washington. OK, here’s the connection to Fred. Gerrymandering is simply a rigged system of rearranging voting districts to simply get reelected time and again by condensing votes geographically so that the party in power always gets voted in. Fred is suggesting to do away with gerrymandering and let the representatives actually represent the whole state they are from; let them all work as a team for the interests of the whole state. I like it; and you?

So, thank you Fred for putting in print what I have felt for a long time. I hope I’m not alone.

Jerrold Gregory Trumbull