Ask Americans to name a problem with our healthcare system, and you’ll hear a range of answers, from insurance bureaucracy to overbooked doctors to the inadequacies of Medicaid. Only a very few will name Medicare’s drug benefit, known as Part D.
Alex Lear
Staff Writer
Alex Lear is a lifelong Mainer who has spent 25 years in journalism -- the first 20 as a reporter for newspapers in Damariscotta and Falmouth, then as Opinions section editor for the Sun Journal and now a digital producer with the Maine Trust for Local News. His long-running “Learics” column won first place in the Maine Press Association’s 2023 Better Newspaper Contest. He and his wife Lauren are kept young by their 9-year-old daughter Alaina. Send feedback and suggestions to Alex.
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Cal Thomas: Zaila and the Bee
People who are tenacious, overcome obstacles and succeed used to be part of the American story, a story we were happy to share to encourage others. What happened to it? Why do we focus less on success and more on envying and penalizing the successful? Why is there the constant drumbeat in our politics and most of the media about the unsuccessful and the proposals by certain politicians to throw good money after bad on programs that have mostly not worked?
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Posted inLetters, Opinion
In rebuttal: Claude Bergeron: ‘Structurally racist system’ must be changed
The conclusion of Kevin Landry’s guest column (“Time to move on from a cancerous past,” July 11) misses the point. Yes, our ancestors suffered many indignities and prejudices when we emigrated from Quebec to make a better life for ourselves. (David Vermette, who Landry quotes, also likens our experience to that of today’s Somali immigrants.) […]
Posted inLetters, Opinion
Stephen Carnahan: A first step to break racism’s hold
What, exactly, does a thug look like? In the July 14 article reporting that an internal State Police review found no racial profiling by Trooper John Darcy, this is the unanswered question. Police authorities were right to be concerned that Trooper Darcy made this statement. What exactly, I’d like to know, made him think that […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Bob Neal: The Countryman: Keeping it all together
Ronald Reagan assembled and held together a coalition of fundamentalists and big business that seem about as likely to be bedfellows as are peaches and frisbees. But Reagan got and kept the peaches and frisbees together, and Republicans won six of 11 presidential elections.
Posted inLetters, Opinion
Jamie Beaulieu: Move forward together in wake of crises
We Americans have decided to respond to the last few crises separately. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that meant shoving aside those who’d committed themselves to seeing the American people through the battle between Middle Eastern extremists determined to use terrorist attacks to provoke a war they could use to restructure that region, […]
Posted inLetters, Opinion
Daphne Izer: Mandate automatic emergency braking on trucks
The U.S. Senate will soon be voting on a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar surface transportation bill, S. 2016, the Surface Transportation Investment Act. The bill directs the U.S. Department of Transportation to mandate lifesaving technology, automatic emergency braking, on large new trucks. However, due to the influence of the trucking lobby, the bill excludes small and medium […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Cal Thomas: Penalty for early withdrawal
What did we learn from Vietnam? Obviously nothing because we have repeated history in Afghanistan. There was no “end game,” except to hold off the Taliban, an entity motivated by religious fervor that has no intention of quitting.
Posted inLetters, Opinion
John O’Malley: Vaccinations needed to ensure life, work safety
Much has been written recently about vaccinations; some refuse to be vaccinated for numerous reasons. I think they have every right to not get vaccinated, even though they may infect others. The courts have ruled that employers have a right to require employees to be vaccinated to ensure a safe workplace for clients and employees. […]