Readers Write: Lake cabins, gun violence, AI in Medicare approvals, summer camp horses

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

Karen Tolkkinen’s article about today’s cabin rings so true (“The ideal lakeside cabin is not a McMansion. Let’s take better care,” Sept. 2). Our vision when buying our northwest Wisconsin lake lot and camping in 1977 became a reality with the shell we had built in 1988. Slowly it progressed as we made finishing touches over many years — a small log cabin in the woods on a little pristine lake. One bedroom, loft, bunkhouse. With plenty of land to expand, we will not. Our family and friends love this place.

Visiting our neighboring lakes with the onset of massive structures has been shocking to see. Did the owners miss the point? Then, in many cases, they sell and move on. Indifferent to the wake of destruction.

Phyliss Haugen, Minneapolis

Thanks to Jill Burcum for reminding readers that gun violence is a statewide issue. Too often gun violence is positioned as an urban issue, and that’s just not the case, as the Rocori and Red Lake shootings she referenced illustrate (“Two decades, few solutions since Rocori, Red Lake,” Strib Voices, Aug. 30).

If you live in greater Minnesota, please live up to your name. Contact your legislators and tell them to reinstate the assault weapons ban. Among those who need convincing just a week and a half after this tragedy are Rep. Paul Novotny, Rep. Mary Franson and Rep. Harry Niska, just to name a few, according to a recent article (“Democrats demand tougher gun laws,” Aug. 29). Not sure who represents you? Go to gis.lcc.mn.gov/iMaps/districts/ to find out.

I do take exception with the headline (which I realize she may not have written): “Two decades, few solutions ... .” I guess “few” is not the same as none; still, for those of us who have been working tirelessly to advocate for gun safety laws, it still stings.

The one thing we cannot afford at this point is hopelessness. We cannot give up. We must keep going.

In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill that became law last year: extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs). More information is available online at onethingyoucando.org/minnesota/.

We need a multipronged approach to make an impact on this complicated issue. Let’s do all we can to keep people alive.

Karen Tolkkinen has a challenging task, walking the line between rural communities and the bulk of the population that reads her commentaries, people in the metro area. Generally, she does a good job, as displayed in her column on Sept. 3 titled “Rural gun users don’t want to pay for urban violence.” She pointed out the clear difference between so-called assault rifles and hunting firearms. Her distinction between “gun violence” and “deadly violence” is also probably helpful for rural people. For example, in one paragraph she observed that cars have been deadly when used as a weapon. But in that same paragraph she wrote, “in banning certain kinds of firearms, we might open the door to other kinds of mass violence.” For me, that hints at a sort of hopeless Whac-A-Mole concern. “They” could get you one way or the other.

But preventing violence is not a zero-sum effort. In fact, limiting one kind of violence might create a culture that models limiting other kinds of violence. We cannot discount one effort because of a fear of unintended consequences. Do what we can and see.

Regarding “Medicare will require AI-driven approval for certain procedures” (Aug. 30): The death panels, i.e., the claim that the Affordable Care Act would establish a committee to decide which people were “worthy” of medical care that Republicans howled about in their opposition to the ACA, seem to be finally coming to pass at their behest. Some of the largest sources of Medicare fraud originate from corrupt health care providers, common methods being false billing and upcoding, all of which can occur after a procedure is “approved.” The most effective way to cut fraud is to ramp up the investigative means of combatting it, such as the multiagency Medicare Fraud Strike Force (around 94% conviction rate) and passing legislation to make billing and coding more transparent.

Reliance on faulty algorithms, as the Republicans are suggesting, will do nothing but add layers of bureaucracy and red tape, perhaps endangering lives, and is not an effective way to fight Medicare fraud.

The use of artificial intelligence for Medicare will be a fiasco. AI is a fancy computer program that is only capable of doing what it is programed to do. AI has no soul, no empathy, no common sense, and is uncaring and not capable of understanding what the consequence of its programmed decisions are. People’s needs will go unmet. Retirees will be hurt and die, and AI won’t give a darn.

The goal of the program will be to reduce cost and it will willy-nilly deny people needed medical care, much like UnitedHealthcare has done. Retirees will have no recourse to get the medical procedures they need because the AI program can only repeat over and over endlessly what it is programed to do. The term “artificial intelligence” is an oxymoron as the program is not intelligent per a human. It can store huge amounts of data and spit it back quickly but is not truly able to create anything new. It just robs and combines people’s ideas. In the creative space these programs violate copyright with no regard for the consequences to the creators of the ideas and products.

AI will ruin Medicare and cause so much pain, suffering and death to retirees by needlessly, uncaringly denying necessary medical care with the only goal of saving money.

Ronald Hegner, Independence, Minn.

Karin Winegar’s recent commentary (“When summer camp is over, ask about the horses,” Strib Voices, Sept. 1) raises important questions about equine welfare, but it leaves readers with the impression that most camp horses are discarded each fall and funneled directly into slaughter. That is not the full picture.

Many camps do not own their horses at all. Instead, they lease them from professional suppliers who maintain large herds year-round. These suppliers rotate horses among camps, lesson barns and trail facilities. Their business depends on keeping horses healthy, not discarding them. A safe, seasoned camp horse is a valuable asset.

It’s true that costs for hay, grain, veterinary care and farrier work are rising. Some horses do age out of safe riding jobs and may be sold at auction, where outcomes are uncertain. But many others find second homes in therapeutic programs, lesson barns or with private families. Still others are retired or humanely euthanized when their quality of life is gone.

Working horses — whether at camps, carriage companies or therapy programs — often receive better care than idle backyard horses. Their daily jobs mean they are consistently fed, trimmed and vetted.

Camp remains one of the best ways for children to experience horses. Parents should ask camps about horse welfare, but they should also know that most camp horses are not simply “used up” and discarded. They remain part of a larger system that values their work and their well-being.

Mike Miller, Stacy, Minn.