SPEAKOUT

Just a shame

What are the poor elderly seniors supposed to do nowadays? I've called looking for my aunt a dentist. I called a place that is supposed to be helping poor people and they say it's gonna run between $100 and $160 just to get a tooth pulled, when before it was just $40. I told them I thought the state was supposed to be helping. They said the people weren't paying the up-front payment. I think that's a lame excuse. If the work was $200, you had to pay the $200 up front. I thought that was a lame answer. It's all about greed. The state is paying them a percentage and whatever they make extra is going in their pockets, and I think that's a shame. But then again, the poor people are gonna suffer because my aunt can't afford to pay $160 unless she don't pay her electric bill for a month. She said she guess she could wait till the spring and not pay her electric bill for a month and let them shut it off so she can get her tooth pulled. I think that's a d**n shame. We can send money overseas to help people but we can't help our poor here. That's a d**n shame.

Add 'em to the list

Just a thought. If there is such a thing in the United States as a deportation law, how about throwing these names in - Ed Schultz, Juan Williams, Bob Bechtel, Nancy Pelosi, Al Sharpton and Allen Combs. The country would probably be a whole lot better off.

Can't afford to get sick

I am a 50-year-old woman. I have diabetes, COPD and a bad liver. I have diabetic neuropathy in my feet. I have not worked for over two and a half years. I'm not doing real good as you can probably tell. I called the market place to get me some insurance and find out what it would cost. No income, no medical card, no nothing - $466 a month for insurance. How is that affordable? How is that gonna help me? If I have to pay $466 a month, I won't have any groceries in my cabinet. I just want people to stop and think what our president is doing. We need help. People here need help.

We deserve a break

I was curious if there is any way that you can get a tax break if you live in the part of the county that is neglected repeatedly? I live in western New Madrid County. We are the last to get county water. We've had our schools get taken away. I live in the rural area. Our roads are virtually impassable. The mail person even got stuck and had to be pulled out. And now I found out that they don't work on Fridays. I can see that if they worked 14 hour days. But we have roads that are impassable because of the snow melting and the rain on top of that. They need to prioritize. The western part on New Madrid County is treated like a bad, misbehaved stepchild. We should get like a third off our taxes or something. The only time we see anybody over here is when they want our vote. We were the last to get water, the first to get our schools shut down and the last to get anything done. And they decide to take a three-day weekend when we have roads that you can't even get a car down. County roads. Please help us. Can we annex in with Stoddard County or something? They don't care about us. But then again, that's politics. What you gonna do?