“Rich Get Richer With IRS Loophole” (Feb. 20) misses a big point for the Big Apple. Reinsurers based in Bermuda paid out $3 billion in losses as a result of damages from Hurricane Sandy in New York and surrounding states.
Capital in the reinsurance (backup coverage) market, regardless of its source, helps tame the price and boost the supply of property and casualty insurance. In the aftermath of 9/11, international insurance and reinsurance firms, including those based in Bermuda, paid 64 percent of the estimated $27 billion in US payouts for the claims.
New Yorkers know who’s in their corner. When catastrophe hits, the Bermuda reinsurers come through big time.
Bradley Kading, President and Executive Director, Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers, Washington, DC
TV’s swan song
Enough is enough with all this trashy and degrading reality TV (“Rearview Mirror,”Feb. 20).
We have people acting like desperate losers competing for average-wage jobs, and now “The Swan” is back?
Don’t women these days suffer enough being compared to beautiful, size-zero celebrities?
No wonder so many people are popping anti-depressants or pain pills.
Let’s all turn off our TVs and read a good book or take a class.
Rose Marusa, Stratford
Medicaid mess
New York City’s Medicaid Audit Recovery Unit would be a success if the New York State Office of the Medicaid Inspector General (OMIG) would let us do our job (“$4M Medical Waste Squad,” Feb. 19).
The first four years of the program had seen some success, and collections were on the rise. Since 2011, the state OMIG has held up over 82 audits that would bring in $60 million from providers’ overbilling. We have 50 proposals in Albany and 50 more on the way, worth over $100 million that have not gotten the go ahead.
That’s real dollars to New York City and New York state, and that is why we believe the state OMIG needs to support our efforts instead of preventing us from being successful.
Robert Doar, Commissioner, Human Resources Association, Manhattan
Struggling class
When are people going to finally realize that President Obama has no intention of getting the economy going (“The Gun Distraction,” Michael Walsh, PostOpinion, Feb. 21)?
The real goal for Obama is to destroy the middle class, because you cannot have tyranny without destroying it.
Most of the weapons held in this country are by the middle class. The rich often don’t need weapons — they have security.
If the Democrats happen to take back the House in 2014, there will be no stopping the destruction of the middle class.
I hope people get it soon.
S. Woolridge, San Diego
Gross endowment
Naomi Schaefer Riley makes excellent points in her column on the increase in tuition costs (“The Right Way To Cut College Costs,” PostOpinion, Feb. 20).
I’d like to add another. Many of these universities have large endowment funds.
I understand the need for such a fund, but if a university is sitting on $1 billion, it is unconscionable to not divert a portion of those funds towards lower tuition costs.
Arik Lifshitz, Manhattan