Stop the Hilton Head road monstrosities | Letters

Hilton Head Island is not a six-lane island, no matter how many people local government wants to squeeze in at one time.

You don’t fix a slow pouring wine bottle by making the bottle bigger ... and you don’t spend 100 bucks to fix a 25-dollar problem.

Hilton Head needs new bridges, but they shouldn’t try to run over natives and the beauty of the island in the effort. The new monstrosities that are being foisted on us by the lack and imagination of local and county leaders needs to be stopped before they do irreparable harm.

Gone will be the scenic entrance to the island. Gone will be houses of those who have lived on their land for generations. And gone will be any pretense that politicians actually care about the people.

Replace the bridges. Add emergency lanes and bike lanes and a draw bridge if needed. But this is massive overkill for a problem that isn’t even the fault of the bridges we have now.

Too little info to make decisions on Hilton Head road options

This recent presentation as well as Sunday’s Packet coverage has increased our differences on the U.S. 278 corridor project.

The six alternatives are far too complex to evaluate without a formal education on road and bridge planning, together with a better description of the major variables involved. That would include construction costs, time, and the impacts on interim traffic, residents and natural habitat.

In addition, the Packet raises the question of whether we should even continue on the course that our founders set in creating a new community primarily dedicated to tourism while minimizing the environmental impact on the most desirable natural island environment on our Southeast coast. We also became a home for retirees who experienced the island as tourists and have built more than two dozen planned communities, most of which have environmental priorities. And we are slowly helping our natives more.

We have already voted to continue in this direction.

I suggest that we focus more on asking the designers to simplify and clarify these alternatives, and devote our dialogue to whether our various organizations are sufficiently maintaining the environmental emphasis we originally had.

GOP chops away America’s health care

I would like to be among the first to congratulate conservative Republicans for achieving their goal.

After the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, tens of millions of Americans who previously did not have health insurance suddenly became safely insured, improving their access to care, and in many cases, improving their health status.

Despite this remarkable achievement, Republicans tried to kill the law, and when that did not succeed, President Donald Trump and is minions started carving off pieces to slowly drain the law of its original success.

The U.S. Census Bureau just reported that for the first time since 2009, the number of uninsured Americans increased. In 2017, the uninsured rate rose from 7.9 percent to 8.5 percent, equal to 27.5 million people no longer with health coverage.

The data also confirmed an especially sad fact: the uninsured rate among people age 18 and younger increased from 4.9 percent to 5.5 percent, equal to 4.3 million children losing health insurance coverage.

So, congratulations Republicans. Your heartless crusade to make health care a privilege for the wealthy and not a right for all Americans seems to be working.

Those of us who believe in universal access to health care will see you Election Day.