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Steamboat Springs — I read the commentaries in Steamboat Today because politics, for which I've never cared much, is becoming a bit relevant. I'm a Christian school teacher, and one of the unfortunate facts of modern Christian education is that only the teacher, not the whole family, gets employer-provided health insurance, without paying a fortune. This was quite different when I taught college. This, coupled with subsistence wages and in some schools terrible politics, will cause Christian schools within the next five years to be taught more by mothers interested in tuition breaks than by trained, experienced educators.

Imagine trying to see both sides of an issue, rather than trying to win an argument. You can really have your viewpoints challenged. I've done this while reading about a Jewish lady who went to live with the Palestinians. I've also been looking at Jewish-Polish relations during World War II. Both have shown me that they didn't tell us the whole story back in Hebrew school. I've seen the church that ran my Bible school alma mater sued out of existence, then, under a new name, go through more controversy 18 years later. As a former professor, I've read plenty of unsigned student evaluations. As a teacher, I've heard plenty of evaluations right to my face, by parents and older students. I often find out later what is said behind my back. Truth can be a two-sided coin or even multi-faceted.

Socrates wanted people to look at the paths different ideas would lead to. The politicians of his day were so upset at his ideas that they had him executed for - get this - corrupting the youth. Yet politics today seems to be like a football game - win, win, win at any cost, and don't admit your team's mistakes.

When I was young, health care was cheap. My pediatrician's office was in a house. He had a receptionist, so we paid for two people. An ER visit as a young adult cost me $25. Employer-provided Blue Cross-Blue Shield paid it all. Today, we pay for an army of bureaucrats. Clinics are in multimillion-dollar steel and concrete complexes. New technologies usually save money, but medical technologies increase the cost of health care. The last I heard, cars in clinics in northern New England often sport Canadian license plates, as many Canadians who have free care, at least in their own provinces, are willing to pay for medical care here.

I've seen socialized medicine. Visiting a friend in a hospital in Israel showed me what happens when you're understaffed. A college student who already had graduated with a triple major - was it political science (or psychology), history, and economics? - explained to me that Europe is littered with failed experiments in socialized medicine. Yet a Canadian nurse, whose New Zealand wife I shared an office with years ago, told his wife that America is the only country where he's seen somebody die because of lack of insurance.

All this does not solve the problem, but it tells us what the debate is often missing. Costs are going up, thanks to new technologies that we need, bureaucracy that we might not need, and more. As with the global warming debate, Middle East issues (Sept. 11 proved that they can affect us quite directly) and everything else we can discuss, we need to stop acting like my two little sons having a fight, but lay all our cards on the table. Politicians generally are rhetoricians. As important as communication is, we have to communicate with facts, open discussions, and the realization that in the real world, we can't legislate perfection.

Howard Merken

Steamboat Springs