Speakout 10/6

Let's end all this lunacy about there being any such dog called a french pug. This dog is simply a mixed breed dog. It is not recognized as a pure breed by any of the major organizations. So if you want to have a mixed-breed puppy, that's fine, but may I suggest you go to the Sikeston Bootheel Humane Society and pay under $75 instead of paying $400, $450 or $500 for essentially the same thing.

As if drug violence wasn't enough, like crack cocaine and stuff like that, now, because neighboring states have raised the tax on cigarettes, you've got to put these people who are addicted on cigarettes on a real high alert. They can't afford them now at $3-plus for a pack of cigarettes. Any voter in this state is crazy for voting for an increase on the cigarette tax because violence will go up. And it would be stupid. It didn't work with the drug war, it doesn't work with a lot of stuff. Just look at what you're doing. I just want to urge everyone who is voting out there to keep it down. It's bringing money in from neighboring states like Illinois to our state so we can have more money. Not only that, it keeps the violent crime down for people who can't afford to get their habit. Try looking at it from this viewpoint.

I was reading in the paper about where the state rates continue to increase on heath insurance. I was doing some figuring. If the state pays $259 million toward a health care plan for employees (actually taxpayers' money), that totals $375 million and out of that (divided by 48,000 state employees) it's $7,813. If you divide the percent the employees pay which is 31 percent, because the state pays 69 percent, that's just $2,422 per employee that they hold out of their check. The state pays the rest. I'd like to bring this person to the attention that I am a self-employed person. Mine is $5,000 per year. I pay 100 percent and would like to remind him that I pay 100 percent, he pays 31 percent (of taxpayers' money). It is a benefit to him. He also has benefits down the road, such as state taxes not being taxable. I don't. Mine is 100 percent taxable. If anything is being done, the state is getting ripped off. Not the employees. They need to stop whining and pay their share. Maybe they have awful sickly employees or go to the doctor for every whim and whine and don't think about who's paying the bill. They need to think about who's spending all this money and their rates wouldn't keep going up like that.

On Sept. 23, a SpeakOut comment was printed, "Caregiver tells more." I am also a caregiver and this person is exactly right. Exactly. Some of these clients expect us to give the white glove treatment. It's ridiculous, when they're getting a free service. I have clients who work more hours than I do and I have to clean their house, and they have family living with them and expect me to clean up after all of them. That is ridiculous. That needs to be cut out and the service should be provided for those who can't get other help or can't help themselves. This is ridiculous for people to get help. People who don't need it get help and Medicaid has to pay for all this. I have patients who are in their early 20s who have babies that we're having to take care of. It's ridiculous.

This is to my cousin. You should be ashamed for all the people you caused all that trouble for. If you even still live in the same town or even go to church anymore, I wouldn't know.