Cheney Should Consider Nation and Step Down

Re “‘Pacemaker-Plus”’ in Place, Cheney Leaves Hospital,” July 1: Vice President Cheney, our go-to guy in the event the unthinkable should occur, has had four heart attacks. Has anyone considered, should something happen to President Bush, the amount of stress this would immediately place on Cheney?

The vice presidency of the U.S. is a job we count on only at times of extreme and dire emergency. It is like being a fireman. Sit around the station, drink coffee, drill and practice for those moments when called upon to save someone or something. If you had loved ones trapped in a burning house, would you want someone who had already had four heart attacks to respond? Cheney has stated that he still feels he can do his job. You almost wonder if he understands exactly what the job is. Sitting around a room chairing meetings is not the job. The real answer to the question of his fitness to serve will remain unknown unless something should happen to Bush. Personal heroics aside, Cheney needs to consider the citizens he has been sworn to serve and gracefully bow out of a job he clearly loves.

Nick Deano

Pomona

Most Americans 35 and older are prayerfully and anxiously watching Cheney’s recovery with the addition of a pacemaker. He has gone in with a smile for each procedure and encourages senior citizens cheerfully to face what we must. Four heart attacks, and he continues working with the support of his wife, friends and colleagues. Viva la modern medicine! Knowledge has helped many, including Cheney, to continue living healthy and useful lives.

Virginia Gayl Salazar

Whittier

This is a wonderful opportunity for our vice president to find out what health care in this country is really like. He should try going to an emergency room and waiting four hours before seeing a doctor, then being given a cursory examination and some pain medication and told to go home. He should be asked to sign a form agreeing not to sue anyone, regardless of the quality of treatment. He should be told that he must agree to pay full costs in the likely event that Medicare decides that the procedure is not required. Would his expensive recording device have been issued to discover that his heart occasionally speeds up for no reason? Of course not. The arrhythmia would not have been discovered until it was too late.

Carol Mathews

Santa Monica

Was it my imagination, or did Cheney mutter, “Thank God I don’t have an HMO,” when he went into the hospital for treatment of an irregular heartbeat?

Brad Goldberg

Studio City