They had a full page article today on "the health care crisis" and didn't mention single payer, or the public option.. not once.
They DID however, manage to get in several paragraphs on how expensive any change is going to be... and
all the taxes that everyone will be burdened with.. which were covered in gory (and inaccurate) detail.
Here is my LTTE: (how much you want to bet that all the "good bits" get edited out, if they choose to publish.)
I’m writing in response to your full page editorial in Sunday’s paper about the "Health Care Crisis".
I find it astounding that you can do a full page piece on this subject without a single word of how the insurance industry has contributed to the crisis, and how it came to be a crisis in the first place.
When most of the baby boomer generation was growing up (and I am part of that demographic), there was less discussion about the cost of health insurance. We got to see our doctors, and when we were very sick, they might come to our houses to see us at home. Insurance companies were non-profit, prescription drug manufacturers didn’t advertise and rates weren’t problematic for most household incomes.
When insurance companies went public, they had new obligations, obligations that were separate from the care of patients. They had to show a profit. From then on, every nickel that went into dividends to shoreholders was a nickel that wasn't spent on patient care.
Opponents of a "single payer plan" or it’s rather anemic substitute, a "public option" have been using the same arguments since the Truman administration... They are the same arguments that were used to try to defeat Social Security and Medicare. They say that it would be horrible to have a "government bureaucrat between you and your doctor". Well right now there’s an insurance company bureaucrat sitting there.. and this one gets a bonus when he figures out a way to deny your claim and save the company money. Frankly, I’d prefer to have someone who might have to respond to someone who I can vote out.
Poll after poll shows that the American people want the government to get involved and fix this multi-generational mess that we’re in. They also show that most people would be willing to pony up a buck or two in taxes to insure that they won’t face bankruptcy if faced with a catastrophic accident or chronic debilitating illness. When their newly graduated offspring “fall off” the family policy and are having trouble finding a job “with bennies” in this economy, they would like to know that a mishap won’t throw their families into a financial disaster.
To those of us who have been paying attention, it seems that we are just a few conservative democrats (and apparently the National media) away from a plan that could genuinely rein in costs, bring down prices and insure those who have recently lost their job, or cannot find their first one in this economy.
If not now, when?
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
