Newcastle Herald letters to the editor: Monday, April 27, 2020: Assure the insured that health cover is worth it

In my opinion, the government has taken away the very reason people join health funds which is elective surgery, to get hip and knee replacements and other operations and procedures when needed rather than waiting on the public system. As a result, they are usually taking pressure off the public system. Those with extras are missing out as well, as some of these services cannot be accessed for the foreseeable future.

Looking at the numbers, my premiums were going up $17.12 per month which is a saving of $102.72 over the six-month period, but I will still pay $2629.62 for services I cannot use.

To me, private health insurers are double dipping as they are still receiving members' money and over $1 billion in funding from the government. Some health fund bosses have in the past claimed older members are a burden on health funds, but these are the same people that I believe are keeping health funds going. Young people are pulling out of private health in droves as they don't see it as value for money. Sometimes neither do I.

I realise these are testing times and everyone has to do their share. But I don't think it's fair that older people on fixed incomes already struggling to pay high premiums even in better financial times should have to pay for private hospitals to be used for the public system because preceding governments both Labor and Liberal have slashed billions of dollars from health budgets and run the health system into the ground.

THE report that suggested the construction of a container terminal for the Port of Newcastle ('Port pushes projects to lift Hunter economy', Herald 18/4) was interesting. I don't know why this government is so hostile to a container terminal being built in Newcastle. However, the same article said that a number of other projects were on the list of proposals to boost the local economy.

My concern is that no rail proposals were listed. I would have thought the Glendale interchange, the Fassifern bypass, an extension of the light rail and a railway to the airport would have made a lot of sense. Infrastructure of this nature would have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce consumption of fuel oils and reduce traffic congestion. We need improved and expanded rail infrastructure.

Most of us know what happened to the city when the railway into Newcastle was closed. That is one mistake the powers that be would do well to learn from.

The current shutdown won't last forever, and neither will the economic downturn which many say will follow. We need to be prepared for when economic activity really starts to move again. The time to prepare for that is now.

I THINK every politician at federal, state and local government level, and their families, should download the COVID-19 app. For added assurance I think the top two grades of federal public servants should also show their support by downloading the app. When this occurs, you can count me in.

PEOPLE shouldn't worry too much about their privacy being compromised with the proposed corona tracking app. If the police or the AFP really wants to find you, they can already do this. Anyone who owns a mobile phone can be traced. Even if you are not using your phone at the time, it can be traced. Your phone is constantly talking to the phone cells to detect the strongest signal. The police can triangulate your phone and find your exact location.

You may remember the Boston marathon bombing in April of 2013. Two brothers of Chechen descent were the perpetrators of this bombing. Police shot one of the brothers, who died of his injuries. The second brother went into hiding. It wasn't long before police traced him to a speedboat in the backyard of a suburban home. They did this by triangulating the signal from his phone. From that point on, he was assisting police with their enquiries.

So if it is going to help the health authorities to minimise the pandemic, it may be worth downloading the app.

DO our politicians realise that here in Australia we could potentially create our own pandemic to spread around the world by doing what lots of us are doing now?

We shoot and kill so many wild animals and send them off for dog or cat food, and even sell the kangaroo steaks at butcher shops for our own consumption. As we merrily slobber our way through our slurpy barbecue kangaroo steaks I believe we are actually doing exactly what created the coronavirus in China: consuming wild animals here for which there are no health checks or restrictions whatsoever.

Wild pigs, eels and yabbies from farm dams, smoked snakes - the list is pretty large, and nothing is done to protect us from them. We blithely continue along this path because so far we've had no such disasters, but surely now we can see what could happen here to us one day. Ah, but the politicians will say maybe one day. Ho hum.

IF Peter Devey (Letters, 23/4) is so confident that there is no evidence that carbon dioxide can cause death or illness, I kindly (and non-seriously) invite him to place a plastic bag over his head and record his observations. In the course of this experiment he may find that a gas found in low concentrations (carbon dioxide makes up less than one per cent of the air we breathe to survive) can have a very different impact when you increase that percentage even slightly.

Changes to the climate impact rainfall, temperature, species distribution, and many other variables which are already impacting crops, transport routes and ultimately human health. This is the consistent finding of the world's scientific community.

The current pandemic should be a demonstration that societies can change their behavior to protect human health if they choose to. We should listen to climate scientists in the same way that we are all listening to the scientists supporting us through COVID-19 and researching a vaccine, and begin preparing to live in a world with a changed climate. It's 2020. There's no place for continued climate denial.

TODD Greenberg, the game of rugby league in Australia has benefited greatly from your expertise as chief executive. In every walk of life, someone has to do the hard yards to bring forth whatever success is forthcoming. It is very easy to sit back and offer criticism without making an honest effort to better what is on the table. I wish him all the best wherever today takes him. Mr. Greenberg, our wonderful sport is better for your presence as its leader.

I HAVE been playing lawn bowls about three times a week for 45 years now, and when I learned a couple of months ago that I could not go near a bowling green because of the coronavirus situation I thought I handled it fairly well. Meanwhile, my wife has almost finished my personal straight jacket, sewn from Kevlar or some type of sail cloth and my psychiatrist reckons I'm coming along okay, all things considered. He said that if I can remain stable for the next couple of months, my carer will be able to wheel me around the block once a week, as long as I don't go within 500 metres of a bowls club. Hang in there folks, we're all in this together.

THERE is a saying: lies, damn lies and statistics. Scott Hillard (Letters, 23/4) is a master of using statistics to suit his arguments. He quotes that COVID-19 has killed 177,000 people and this "pales in comparison" to the 300,000 to 500,000 people killed by influenza each year. He conveniently ignores that COVID-19 deaths only started at the beginning of the year. On January 22 there were only 17 deaths worldwide from COVID-19. A further 28 days later on February 19 there were 2126 deaths. A month on again the number of deaths had increased to 8972. Four weeks after that the deaths had increased to 138,475. As of April 23 the death toll is 184,028. When viewed in this manner, if this rate of growth continues by January next year the death toll from COVID-19 will dwarf that of deaths from influenza so his case for a lifting of the restrictions is significantly diminished.

THERE are a few independent fuel sellers in the Newcastle area that we should all be supporting. Service stations like Metro at Charlestown and Highfields have been selling petrol for under a dollar for some time now, but I believe the Coles and Woolworths stations are gouging us by keeping their margins high and "giving" you 0.04 cents off their grossly inflated fuel prices. The oversupply of oil in the world at present means that our prices should be similar to Sydney prices of around 80 cents per litre. While we are not able to drive around much, my advice is to give the Independents a go and make the others reduce their prices now.

NOW that we are well into this coronavirus thing and are being asked to contactless payment methods rather than use cash, how many realise that the surcharge for credit is in many cases being added to your docket without your knowledge? I think it must be a new way to get the economy moving again by stealth. It happens at some of the major supermarkets, in case you are wondering.