Letters: ‘An Empire at Risk’

Americans live beyond their means and spend money on useless wars. Unless corrective action is taken, America's fall could be a reality.
S. Raghunatha, Alappuzha, India

Niall Ferguson's article cites steep debt, slow growth, and high spending as empire killers. Was greed too irrelevant to be considered a major factor?
Joseph Creasy, Falls Church, Virginia

We have chosen to risk our credit and the security of future generations rather than make hard choices. This is not just Congress's fault. Who has voted recently for a candidate who said he would raise taxes and cut entitlements and defense spending?
David Doney, Chicago, Illinois

Niall Ferguson's claim that the current financial crisis may lead to the U.S.'s losing its status as a superpower is farfetched. The U.S. derives its superpower status from its resources: natural, human, and above all, the ability to innovate to meet challenges. In China and India, it will take a long time for the masses to be educated to that level. The crux of greatness lies in being a world leader in every sphere of human endeavor, and that is where the U.S. and Western Europe score points.
Bharat Raj Bajaj, Chandigarh, India

'Abortion's New Battleground'
Ruth Marcus is correct that women stand to gain much from health-care reform. However, I disagree that the benefits of expanded insurance coverage justify further restrictions on access to abortion care. Eighty-seven percent of employer-based health plans provide coverage for abortion. If the Stupak -amendment—or equally restrictive -language—makes it into the final health-care bill, millions of women could lose their coverage. Using women's reproductive health as a pawn in the debate is not the way to meaningful and inclusive reform.
Vicki Saporta, President and CEO, National Abortion Federation, Washington, D.C.

'The Hospital That Could Cure health Care'
The article misrepresents my objection to "the argument that salaries reduce costs." It says my skepticism is "based less on the data than on [my] knowledge of human nature." As I showed your reporter, the same database that indicates the Cleveland Clinic's expenses were "nearly 50 percent below the most expensive" system's costs for Medicare beneficiaries in the last two years of life also shows that University Hospitals of Cleveland, a mile from the clinic, had almost exactly the same costs, even though its physician practice was organized very differently. When two major academic medical centers down the street from each other have the same costs, and only one pays its doctors by salary, the data suggest salary is not the key variable.
Joseph White, Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

The Cleveland Clinic is not God's answer to health care. I'm a doctor. I spent 24 hours in a Cleveland Clinic patient room last year. If the daughter of one comatose patient had not been present, phlebotomists would have drawn blood from the patient's diseased arm--several times--even though a large sign instructed otherwise. Nurses had their heads in electronic records instead of their hands on patients. If America stresses the business model, then that's what it will get. It is impossible to quantify "caring" and "ministry." Having a heart is better medicine than all the evidence-based, cost-effective approaches in the world.
Lisa Pawelski, M.D., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

'The Trouble with Sarkonomics'
Tracy McNicoll's analysis was first-rate. By taking an extravagant vacation soon after becoming president while France was debt-ridden, Nicolas Sarkozy duped the country. His outcry against the recent banking crisis to show that he really cares for the victims is merely a gimmick. His administration squanders a lot of money and now wants to get the hoodwinked French involved in the quagmire. When the elderly have to steal food from the supermarket, the facts speak for themselves.
Dan Chellumben, Amboise, France

'Bollywood Gets Real'
I was extremely disappointed in the tone taken toward the popular Hindi film industry by Jason Overdorf. Specifically, it seems as if he did no research on the topic. He made generalization after generalization--all of them wrong. He claims that modern fare like Kaminey has beaten more conventional films at the box office, but as examples of conventional Bollywood he cites two films that were publicized in India as being like Hollywood movies: Chandi Chowk to China and Drona. Conventional fare, like the box-office smashes Ghajini and Wanted, continue to trump the indie films like Kaminey. Overdorf ignores the long history of unconventional and more realistic Bollywood films, and he confuses "accessible to Western audiences" with "good."
Kara Baer, Filmi Girl Blog, Washington, D.C.