I am definitely voting “YES” for a new Allen County Hospital. Why?
• We will never get new doctors without an up-to-date facility in which to work and care for their patients.
• Without a new hospital to attract new doctors, we will not be able to draw in new industry. We need to put people back to work. Who wants to live in a town without good medical facilities?
• People suffering heart attacks, strokes, other emergency accidents or illnesses don’t always have time to be transported to a facility 40 or 50 miles away.
• Nursing homes need a hospital close by for their critical care residents.
• Expecting our doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel to work efficiently in an outdated facility with outdated equipment is like asking a mechanic to work on our car using only a wrench and a screwdriver and working under a shade tree; or expecting a farmer to put in his crops walking behind horse-drawn machinery.
• We, the people of Allen County, deserve to have the best medical care available and in order to do that, we must vote “YES” for a new hospital and be willing to pay the extra 1⁄4 cent sales tax.

Pauline Hawk
Iola, Kan

(Editor’s note: Washington Post political columnist David Broder spoke Monday night at KU. Here is his own reflection on the evening, which he wrote for The Post.)

Itinerant politicians and journalists have learned they can expect a warm welcome and a stimulating evening when they visit the hilltop home of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas.
When my turn came Monday night, I found it an intriguing place to assess the closing stage of the 2010 campaign. What I learned was no surprise. Kansas is about to join the national trend. The governorship, which had been held for years by Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s secretary of health and human services, is almost certainly going to revert to the GOP. The one Democrat in the House delegation is retiring this year, and his wife, who is trying to hold the seat, is unlikely to succeed.
So we did not spend much time disputing what the returns here and nationally will show on Nov. 2. Instead, Bill Lacy, the old Washington hand who runs the institute, focused the discussion on the significance for President Obama and the Republicans of what is almost universally expected.
As it happened, my airplane reading en route to Kansas was the Sunday New York Times Magazine article by Peter Baker, my friend and former Post colleague, titled “The Education of a President.” Baker had spent the late summer and early fall interviewing members of Congress and the senior White House staff on the lessons of the first two years of Obama’s term. And Baker had been given a rare, two-hour interview with the president to inquire about Obama’s answer to the question about the relationship between the president and the Republicans in the remainder of his term.
Baker is far too shrewd a reporter and analyst to believe that the answers he received in these pre-election interviews will be as candid and as full as those to come after the returns are in. But the mind-set he found will shape that outcome. Baker’s story offers the best evidence of Obama’s likely reaction to this im-pending defeat.
Here is the key sentence, in which Obama expressed his belief that an election does not have to be seen as a zero-sum game in which any Re-publican gains can be measured in defeats for the president and his agenda.
Wrote Baker: “Obama expressed optimism to me that he could make common cause with Republicans after the mid-term elections. ‘It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible,’ he said, ‘either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them, or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.’”
A Republican partisan could characterize that as a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose proposition, but in the setting of the Dole Institute I was not inclined to be cynical.
From my seat, I was looking directly at the large photo mural of former senator Dole and his frequent partner, Rep. Gerald Ford of Michigan, the House minority leader.
One of them — Ford — achieved the presidency only briefly, when Richard Nixon was forced to resign. The other — Dole — failed each time he ran. But no one regards them as political failures, because they realized that victory is counted in more than vote totals.
They won the ultimate tests of character for two reasons. They did not sacrifice their political principles. And they acknowledged that they shared the responsibility for making this system of government work.
It helped that they came to Washington as young military veterans, survivors of a war against an implacable enemy. They knew the difference between the Nazis, who were truly evil, and the Democrats, who were simply fellow Americans with different political beliefs.
For Obama and the Republicans to establish a productive post-election atmosphere, it may require nothing more than the recapture of that wisdom of their political forebears. Be-have as if you are veterans, and today’s political disputes will recede to their proper size.

Voters will decide Nov. 2 whether to increase a countywide sales tax by 1⁄4 of a cent to go toward a new Allen County Hospital.
Members of the Allen County Healthcare Committee address questions about the issue.
Q: What if the local economy doesn’t pick up soon and the hospital bond issue passes?
A: The November vote authorizes the county to use the quarter-cent sales tax that would be approved to add to the current profits of the hospital and the money from Medicare reimbursement to build the new hospital. Remember the piece from Medicare is 101 percent of the cost Medicare patients incur using the hospital, so if Medicare patients are about half of the inpatients and outpatients, then 101 percent of the cost times 50 percent will be what is received. So regardless of the local economic situation, half of the annual payment on the bonds and all other hospital costs will be taken care of by Medicare.
In a similar way hospital profits should be fairly consistent since 50 percent of the patients are Medicare; the rest are insurance or private pay. The City of Iola has promised $350,000 of its current sales tax for capital improvements each year for 10 years and all of the 1⁄4 cent or about $400,000 of the Allen County sales tax will go to the financing package, if the voters approve it.
Two things have not been discussed yet that will have a positive impact, even in tough economic times. The first thing is a successful bond issue will attract positive feelings among county citizens toward the hospital; some of those good feelings will translate into new patient referrals to the hospital and will help it financially. The second thing is a successful bond issue will appeal to medical specialists who had not considered Allen County Hospital because it was not up-to-date and that appeal should mean a new ability to attract those specialists that bring enhanced revenue to the hospital.
Can these two positive consequences be documented? Yes, they can. In several recent bond issue experiences in Kansas, significant increases have taken place in both patient census numbers as well as attracting new medical specialists and both have contributed to more hospital profits. There is no reason we should not experience the same result.
Growth is not part of the financial plan. We don’t have to have growth to pay for the bonds. But since concern has been expressed that our local economy might not improve soon or that it may get worse, it is important to recognize that it is probable a new hospital would grow in revenue because it is new — this has been the experience of other small hospitals near ours. They attract both new patients and new specialists, which bring additional new patients.
Let’s grow!

ONLY TWO weeks remain before the election. If you would like to help our voter information effort, write to “Yes Allen County Healthcare,” at A.C.B., Inc, 16 W. Jackson, Iola, KS 66749 or contact the Thrive Allen County office at 365-8128.

Effective Dec. 1, I am retiring from the clinical practice of cardiology and will no longer see patients at Allen County Hospital.
My practice partner of six years, Dr. Michael Lloyd, FACC, will continue to provide outreach cardiology clinics twice per month. Dr. Layne Reusser, FACC, will continue to share clinic responsibilities with Dr. Lloyd just as he done with me over the years.
At the request of Dr. John Atkin, I began my outreach cardiology practice at Allen County Hospital in June 1979. Over the many years I have come to appreciate the unique practice of the physicians at Allen County Hospital and their willingness to serve the Iola community and surrounding areas. I have admired their dedication to rural health care and they have become friends and colleagues of mine.
I would like to recognize these physicians who essentially have supported me — many from the beginning — and who continue to support our outreach cardiology clinic: Drs. John Atkin, Earl Walter, Frank Porter, Glen Singer, Brian Wolfe, Wes Stone, Tim Spears, Rebecca Lohman, Richard Hull (retired), Glen Carney (retired), Gordon Sipkins (retired) and their allied health care providers.
I want to thank Joyce Heismeyer, the current chief executive officer of Allen County Hospital, as well as previous hospital administrators for having the vision to embrace outreach clinics in order to bring specialty expertise to the Iola community. Without their support, our cardiology clinics never would have succeeded.
Thank you to the nurses, especially Denise Byrd, registered nurse, and Wanda Ard, RN, the emergency room staff, emergency medical staff and all the personnel at Allen County Hospital — you have truly made my experience a “home away from home.”
To the people of Iola: I have appreciated the privilege and opportunity to provide medical services to you, your siblings, your parents, relatives, grandparents and friends over the past 31 years. Now it is time for me to transition to more time with my wife and family.
As a final thought, please vote YES for a new hospital so that physicians and all health care providers can serve you for years to come in a contemporary environment. You deserve no less.

Sincerely,
Gregory F. Duick MD, FACC
Wichita, Kan.

To my Allen County friends and neighbors.
Imagine after great thought and consideration you have decided to build yourself a new home. You and your family have outgrown your current home and for your family to function at its best, areas needed to be upgraded and more space was necessary.
You looked down the road for a place with everything you were wanting, but staying in our community is important to you and your family, to their future.
You could convert the garage, but you did that several years ago. You could move the kids in together, but that’s already being done, too. So building is the best way to go.
Now imagine this: everyone who visits your home is pitching in to pay the expense of building. That’s right, everyone who stops by your home kicks in a little — family, friends, the mail carrier, the kid who delivers your newspaper, the UPS guy, the trash collecting crew, pizza delivery gal, someone in the neighborhood asking directions to a garage sale.
Would that be a great deal? Of course it would be; and that’s how the building of our new Allen County Hospital will be.
A strong case has been made for the building of a new hospital. We all had opportunity to be a part of the advisory committee, to look into the needs of our current hospital.
Those who took on that challenge for us, along with a trained consulting group, have given us the facts. For the future of our community we need to build a new hospital.
A sales tax fits well for this purpose because the pool of financial support is enormous. Everyone who comes to Iola to shop kicks in a little. Everyone who come to Iola for a sports competition, a special event such as Farm-City Days or the Allen County Fair, a feature at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center — and buys anything — makes a contribution to the fund. Everyone who stops by our community — our home — will pitch in a little to pay the expense.
On Nov. 2, go to the polls and vote YES. Vote YES to support the sales tax. Vote YES for the future of our community. Vote YES for the future of Allen County health care.

Sincerely,
Becky Nilges
Iola, Kan.

What a perfect day we had for Farm-City Days. Not too hot or cold.
There is a situation that I and many other people agree on. We have a good number of disabled people who like to take in the festivities and parades that we have going on from time to time, but there isn’t anywhere designated for them to park. Some can walk a short distance, others can’t walk at all and have to stay in their vehicles.
Iola isn’t the only town with this situation — seems like all cities have the same problem.
Let’s ask our city Dads to try to remedy this. I’m sure there is something they can come up with.
Now comes the hospital situation.
We are very fortunate to have a hospital in our town and county. I think the general consensus of Allen Countians is when it comes to taxes, we have more than our fair share.
I, myself, don’t think a new hospital will have much impact on the growth of our population, industries or jobs. It’s not going to be a cure-all. But I’m voting YES because 1⁄4 of 1 percent is not too much considering what we get in return.
No one can promise all the above will make a great difference, but vote YES.
I figured up one week’s court news money and figured it up times four, then times 12 months. It will blow your mind — half a million dollars. If we were able to use that money and the half a million that will be used to extend the rails to trails (that we don’t need), that would take care of a million of the 30 we need for our new hospital.
I’m  for the new hospital. If you don’t vote, you can’t gripe about the way anything turns out.
The hospital vote will be one of the best things that may well save our lives. More doctors with different fields of care would surely be a great asset. Although most of our doctors try to do their best in their practices.
Put on your thinking cap and vote.

Respectfully,
Carl Letsinger
Iola, Kan.