Affordable Care Act Tattered flag Dumb growth Pastrana, Nitro Circus

Affordable Care Act

Wes Moore, as quoted in the article "A call to action at Martin Luther King Day breakfast" (The Capital, Jan. 17), urged his audience to remember that King "wanted to see a 'willingness to actually do the work' necessary to enact change." That call to willingness hit a perfect note when paired with Moore's quotation from King's "I Have a Dream" on embracing the "fierce urgency of now."

Spurred by those sharp words of action, I have named the ill-considered repeal of the Affordable Care Act as a matter for the "fierce urgency of now" and have rededicated myself to work to stop its repeal. In Anne Arundel County, nearly 50 percent of our school-age children qualify for free or reduced-price lunches; that means that 50 percent of families in our county with school-age children earn less than $30,615 a year.

Where is there room in those family budgets for around $1,000 a month in health care premiums and deductibles of $1,000 to $6,000?

I shopped for individual health insurance in October. A pre-existing condition disqualified me from insurance outside the Maryland ACA marketplace. Yes, premiums in the marketplace were extraordinarily high and the deductible ridiculous, but I had health care coverage because of ACA.

Unaffordable health care will still be there if the ACA is repealed. Instead of repealing ACA, let's work to bring down the premiums. Let's not abandon 12.7 million ACA-insured Americans and nearly 18 million more people who benefit from all the other provisions included in the Affordable Care Act. Let's fix it, not ditch it.

MICHELLE LeFURGE

Arnold

Tattered flag

The tattered American flag shown on the front page of the The Capital (Jan. 20) should never have been raised. A flag in this condition should have been respectfully retired with honor.

Placing the photo on the front added to its disgrace.

If the City of Annapolis cannot afford it, I will gladly pay for a replacement flag!

HAL OLSON

Arnold

Dumb growth

I am a practicing attorney with 25 years of experience in Annapolis specializing in family law. My law firm of four women is located on Forest Drive across from Crystal Spring. Like other Forest Drive businesses, I can verify how utterly horrible the existing traffic situation is - we already have instances of clients and potential clients not choosing to come here due to the congestion.

Adding another 1,000 residents with nearly 500 housing units, a shopping center, hotel, and a large traffic-generating food store will further exacerbate a dangerous situation. I really don't know what is going to happen to our business here if the traffic increases from Crystal Spring and other developments such as Parkside Preserve.

As a city resident for almost 40 years, I must take issue with the letter from Walter Vasquez (The Capital, Jan. 5), who would dismiss all such concerns of citizens like me because supposedly want Annapolis to adopt a no-growth strategy and put a fence around the community. He says his nascent group is for responsible development.

There is nothing responsible about the city annexing large, forested acreage from the county and then allowing massive developments in which forest is destroyed, creeks polluted, traffic increased and schools overcrowded. There are many areas of Annapolis needing redevelopment in a responsible way, including the now vacant large Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund site closer to Aris T. Allen Boulevard.

Developments such as Crystal Spring do not pay for themselves and my property tax as a city resident proves that: It is 30 percent higher than if I lived in the county.

PAULA J. PETERS

Annapolis

Pastrana, Nitro Circus

As a lifelong Annapolitan, I say to Travis Pastrana and the Nitro Circus: Go for it!

We live in Eastport, and when the football games are played at the Navy stadium, we can hear the announcer.

Let's at least give it a try before we complain about it.

MARLENE PATMORE

Annapolis