We don’t get it. People on “fixed incomes” whine that they are too poor to pay a tax to improve the hospital, and other people figure that because the county is broke, the taxpayers must be too broke to pay a tax to improve the hospital, too. Neither is true in the case of our household, and we believe more households are like ours than not.

We retired to Island County in 1995 and our household’s “fixed income” from Social Security and a military pension has only risen since then. However, the Navy, which promised to provide health care to retirees and spouses after we turned 65, reneged on that promise and dumped us on the civilian health care “market.”

If we need hospitalization, and that could be any time now, we would like the best care possible, and paying a few bucks a month for that privilege is a good investment, in our opinion.

Jim and Linda Bruner
Oak Harbor