April 5 Letters to the editor

Why not pursue Medicare abuses?

Re: the April 1 article “Medicare changing how it pays for knee and hip replacements.”

The article says Medicare will experiment with changes to the hip and knee replacement payment program in hopes of saving $343 million over five years.

The article also says Medicare spent $7 billion taxpayer dollars in 2014 for hip and knee replacement hospitalizations alone. That would be $35 billion taxpayer dollars for hip/knee replacements over five years.

So, we are going to spend how many dollars for this experiment in order to save less than 1 percent of the total Medicare taxpayer dollars spent on hip and knee replacement. As a taxpayer, I would much rather see the government spend the money on cutting waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare program.

I believe we could easily save at least 10 percent (or more) of total Medicare dollars by hiring more investigators to work on waste/fraud/abuse in Medicare spending. We don’t seem to have anyone in government who can think big when it comes to saving money. A 1 percent savings is puny.

Jerry Bich

Oro Valley

Legislators: Hart should quit UA over DeVry

Re: the March 24 guest opinion “Resign: Hart’s DeVry ties incompatible with UA’s interests.”

We are Rep. Macario Saldate’s colleagues in the Arizona Legislature, who fully support the position he expressed in his guest opinion. He wrote:

“President Hart’s involvement with a for-profit university...does not further the fight for our universities … I ask her to make a choice: Either resign her position on the DeVry University board or step down as president of the University of Arizona.”

In light of her decision not to resign her position on the DeVry University board, we now ask Dr. Ann Weaver Hart to step down as president of the University of Arizona.

We commend Rep. Saldate for taking this stand and add our names to the list of people concerned with President Hart’s actions.

Representatives:

Lela Alston

Richard Andrade

Jennifer Benally

Mark Cardenas

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Ken Clark

Diego Espinoza

Charlene Fernandez

Rosanna Gabaldón

Sally Ann Gonzales

Albert Hale

Stephanie Mach

Debbie McCune Davis

Juan Mendez

Lisa Otondo

Rebecca Rios

Ceci Velasquez

Bruce Wheeler

Senators:

Olivia Cajero Bedford

Robert Meza

Catherine Miranda

Lupe Contreras