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twitterLetter to the editor:
On health care, there’s really nothing to discuss
Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009 | 2:02 a.m.
In his Tuesday letter to the editor in the Las Vegas Sun, Tom Harper says he was saddened when he watched Republican legislators vote as a body to not even consider the health care legislation that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying to push through. But when legislators see that a program will obviously add to an unsustainable increase in the federal budget, they are not obligated to discuss it further.
On the same day that Mr. Harper’s letter ran, the Sun published a column by David Broder in which he showed the results of a Quinnipiac University poll, a poll that Broder says is run with “care and professionalism.”
That poll, he notes, asked: “President Obama has pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our federal budget deficit over the next decade. Do you think that President Obama will be able to keep his promise or do you think that any health care plan that Congress passes and President Obama signs will add to the federal budget deficit?”
Only 19 percent of the sample said Obama will keep his word. Broder added that “nine out of 10 Republicans and eight out of 10 independents said that whatever passes will add to the torrent of red ink.” He also said that by “a margin of 4-3, even Democrats agreed this is likely.”
Everyone except Reid and his ilk has caught on that this legislation is the wrong legislation for a country mired in hopelessness.
I can only hope that more voters think about what this plan will do to our current red ink and the red ink we spill on our offspring. And that hope will be realized if Republican, independent and Democrat legislators pull the plug on this unsustainable legislation.
Discussion: 14 comments so far…
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what is the cost of doing nothing???
you realize that health insurance premiums double every 10 years???
health care accounts for 19% of gdp...
it will only go up if there is no public option...
the current legislation forces everyone to buy insurance...
that means more revenues for the insurance companies...
the current legislation forces insurance companies to end some of their disgusting practices like denying claims based on pre-existing conditions...
that means more expenses to the insurance companies...
and guess what...
those expense will be immediately passed on to the rest of us...
that means insurance costs will double every 7 years or so...
that means health care we be an even larger component of gdp...
listen up boys and girls...
you either support the public option....
or...
you support the greedy pig insurance companies and their very real death panels and the money grubbing whore doctors...
period...
end of story...
If those are my two choices, Birdie, put me down on the side of the greedy pig insurance companies and the money grubbing whore doctors. I will happily pay for my health care, but not yours.
The only losers under Obama, Greid, and Pelosi Health Insurence is you the taxpayering health care consumer
Earlier this year, the White House announced agreements under which hospitals and the drug industry promised cost savings in return for the overhaul's expected expansion in the number of insured patients. President Obama's top aides met frequently with lobbyists and health care industry heavyweights as his administration pieced together a national health care overhaul, according to White House visitor records obtained under a FOIA request by The Associated Press.
575 lobbyist have negotiated their own deal with the Democrats. Here are a few
Barry Rand the AARP group chief executive
George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans;
Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association;
Kenneth Kies, a Washington lobbyist who represents Blue Cross/Blue Shield,
Billy Tauzin, head of PhRMA, the drug industry lobby;
Richard Umbdenstock, chief of the American Hospital Association,
Laird Burnett, a top lobbyist for insurer Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc
Joel Johnson, a lobbyist with United Healthcare Services Inc. and Kinetic Concepts Inc., a medical products maker
Dr. J. James Rohack, the AMA's president
Richard Trachtman, who lobbies for the American College of Physician Services Inc., which represents internists.
We need socialized medicine!!
The only logical answer. Quit voting for incumbents. Always vote for the challenger. The present system is this. We vote them in and the lobbyists bribe them to vote for their cause and we get crapped on. In the next election they make more idle promises and we fall for it. I quit voting for incumbents many many years ago. Give the new guy or gal a chance they might surprise you.
The letter writer is another example of a greedy
Republican who already has health care and does
not care about his fellow Americans who don't.
This is ANTI-AMERICAN.
Americans trying to block health care for their
fellow Americans should cower in shame.
Thanks for a great letter! It takes common sense and grit to face down drooling liberals who support these current health care bills. Make insurance available to the poor,but don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Greed and common sense are two different things.
Republican common sense sent us to Iraq.
I've got mine, Teamster. Get yours. (But don't be a leech and make me pay for yours).
"health insurance premiums double every 10 years"
How much was a gallon of gas 10 years back? What was the median price of a home 10 years ago? How much was a Honda Accord or a Ford truck 10 years back?
Costs will go up - with few exceptions, I can't remember them going down.
So what in the world does that have to do with the very solid and sensible argument against adding to the federal deficit?
Given the options stated above, any sane person who cares about the future of this country will gladly support "the greedy pig insurance companies and their very real death panels and the money grubbing whore doctors" as opposed to a public option. No contest.
Hampster: You need to spend more time protesting in front of Walmart, the most successful business in the history of this rapidly cooling planet.
Teamster-Fellow American? We happen to reside on the same piece of dirt, that is all. Sharing the same piece of dirt does not morally entitle you to take from me the fruits of my labor derived in an honest manner. If you want health care get it the same way I do. Go out and earn the money to pay for it.
You Repubs call yourselves patriots? The right-
wing mindset is that of total selfishness.
President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi
will make sure that every American has health
care.
Thank God the Democratic Majority is in charge.
Happy Thanksgiving.