Correspondent of the Day: Health Care Bill Incites Fear and Concern
Health Care Bill Incites Fear and Concern
Editor, Times-Dispatch: President Barack Obama talks about the need for a government option for health care. He promises a good, comprehensive plan. Curious, then, that the bill the Senate is considering specifically excludes Congress. Apparently it likes the coverage it now has. Looking a little further into the bill, one finds that unions get a special exclusion as well. They won't have to pay taxes on benefits -- but everyone else in America will. Why the special exemptions for Congress and unions? The ruling class is setting up two separate health care systems -- one for those with political clout and the rich who can afford to pay taxes on their gold-plated benefits, and one for everyone else.
Before we leap into this reform, more questions need to be answered, such as: Will illegal aliens be included in the government option? Are there really enough health care professionals to handle the influx of 47 million new patients? Will care be rationed? Who will determine what procedures a person can receive -- a government agency or a doctor? What role will political affiliation play in determining what health care one receives? It is clear from the exclusion of unions from taxation on benefits that party affiliation may play a role in who gets what care. If one is in the government program, will he or she feel pressured to vote for a certain party?
I am fearful of handing my health care over to a man who cared so little for human life that he voted against a bill that would have allowed medical care to be given to babies born alive after a botched abortion. If he could not vote to give care to the weakest among us, does anyone really think he is going to care about the rest of us?
Kathy Dean.
Richmond.
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Reader Reactions
No worries. Senators Webb and Warner would never go along with such a scheme that will ruin our entire health care industry.
This bill, along with the Democrats other reckless spending bills like S-CHIP tax increase, Cap and Tax Energy tax and the stimulus bill will surely plummet us into another drawn out Great Depression create by government.
Just like FDR did.
Kathy - Excellent letter. From all accounts, the rush to jam a national health care program down the throat of this country has left many important questions unanswered. Obama and company have violated preparation rule # 1: Never start any vast projects with any half vast ideas. There are those who want government administered health care so badly, they don’t seem to care how inefficient, expensive and legally conflicted it stands to be. There are those who want government administered health care so badly, they don’t care about about the kinds of details that aren’t being discussed.
Remember Obama talking about the government plan deciding that it would be better for the patient to take painkillers instead of undergoing the operation? So much for that decision being made between you and your doctor.
Are we going to give “free” health care and treatment to smokers and those who engage in high risk unprotected sex? Will there be other special, protected groups of people who get their “free” health care no matter how they behave?
Why are unions exclude from paying taxes on health benefits while taxpayers are not? What kind of pap is that? Will ACORN pay tax on their health benefits?
Interesting how the Times-Dispatch titles the letter: “Health Care Bill Incites Fear and Concern”.
Fear. Be afraid. Be very afraid of any changes. Change should be feared.
Fear was primary tool used by Cheney & Bush to get America’s sheep (us) to allow all control for them to serve their self-interests and we know the outcomes of that.
Fear is primary tool used by the most powerful lobby group; the duo of insurers and pharmas. Keep that high degree of fear in the minds of sheep and they will ignore another fear, being financially strangled, as cost increase 10% annually (Your income been increasing at same rate each of past few years?)
If this newspaper and other outlets similar to Murdoch’s, the lobbyists, their bought politicians, can keep that fear at high level just a few more months, it will be Mission Accomplished. In eight years half of your reading this will be spending 45% of your incomes on health care, as we head toward economic collapse, all while our economic competitive nations decades ago got their systems under cost-control, while ours today is 50% higher than any other nation…and growing, all due to FEAR to change for the better.
Ms. Dean unwittingly makes an argument for national health insurance. Of course members of Congress want to be excluded from any proposed plan! They already have what is derisively called “government health care,“ albeit a deluxe, Mercedes Benz version of it.
Let the Senators and Representatives who oppose national health insurance put their money where their mouths are and go purchase for their families non-group private insurance. Then, in addition to maintaining two residences (one in DC, another in the home state), they could pay the equivalent of a middle class mortgage in insurance premiums, along with several thousand dollars in deductibles.
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