Letters to the Editor for Friday, August 14, 2009

Health care pros and cons

Reform needed now
According to an Aug. 5 article in The News & Advance, the U.S. Census Bureau has just released estimates that 15.5 percent of Virginians do not have health insurance.

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I have delayed routine medical appointments in the last several months and expect to continue to delay or minimize medical care as long as I am uninsured.

I have shopped for private health insurance. The best I could find was a $5,000 deductible policy for $622 a month offered by Anthem BC/BS. This means I would have annual health care expenses of $12,464 before I received any benefits. This is about one-third of my retirement income.

As a person without health insurance, I have been fortunate. My medical and dental costs so far in 2009 have only been $1,600. This is a result of postponing routine medical care, taking prescription drugs less frequently than prescribed and having no medical emergencies. I may be fortunate to continue to avoid major medical costs until I have Medicare. I may not suffer any consequences of voluntarily limiting and delaying routine care. Anyway, that’s what I hope.

Everyone in Congress claims to want some form of health care reform. I hope that the political climate for change will result in something being enacted so that everyone, including me, can afford health care. My vote is for a system with a public option paid for with a steeply graduated income tax.

I understand that compromise will be necessary if a health care bill is to pass. I hope that rigid political positions will not result in congressional inaction. Continuing the status quo is not acceptable. Change may have to come gradually, but it must begin this year.

If I have a medical emergency or major illness in the next two years, I could quickly find myself bankrupt since my retirement savings have substantially decreased in the past year as a result of the downturn of the stock market.

I, like 15.5 percent of Virginians, cannot wait any longer.
LARRY BASSETT
Lynchburg

Mob incitement
Think deeply about this latest rhetoric coming from the president, encouraging his loyal rabble to not only attend the town hall meetings, but to actively engage those Americans who are in disagreement with his policies.

Using words like “punch back harder,” a sitting president of the United States is knowingly inciting violence amongst his own countrymen in his desire to silence dissent in our constitutional republic. That has never happened before in our history!

This man has shown once again that he is below the office of the president. In my opinion, this makes him the criminal — the radical — the “mob.”

Patriots need not bend a knee, nor tolerate this abuse of power by a Marxist agitator ... even one who sits in the Oval Office.
R. LES PUCKETT
Lynchburg

Now is time for reform
Freedom and democracy are vital ingredients to a great America. Civil discourse and a well-informed electorate are necessary for both. None of that is present in the current screaming mobs at town halls or in the transparent propaganda about health care reform.

Drowning out speakers who disagree with you at an open forum designed to further political debate is not freedom of speech, it’s bullying. If your ideas are good and valid, they can withstand debate. Period. On the other hand, making up egregious lies about the opposition’s policy to try to stop it is not an argument, it’s desperation.

Such is the case with the ridiculous lie that the proposal for health care reform contains a law that will put the old and the infirm to death. The lie is so outrageous it gives propaganda a bad name. A minimal amount of research would disclose the actual language in the bill is about paying for patients who want to talk to their doctors about living wills and end of life decisions. Something everyone should do.

As a caretaker for both of my parents who watched each of them take their last breath, I know how important it is that individuals are allowed to make those end-of-life decisions for themselves with their doctor. But, even if you can’t be bothered to look up the actual bill, the level of willful ignorance it takes to believe that any politician would propose killing his constituents and expect to get elected again may disqualify you from using sharp objects.

Do you believe a government run health care option (option!) is going to be incompetent? Socialist? I have one word for you: Medicare, only the most popular government program in the last 50 years.

Know this: insurance companies are the only businesses in the world that make their truly gross profits by denying services to their customers (William McGuire the CEO of United Health Care made $124 million last year). Catastrophic health care emergencies are the main reason families file for bankruptcy in America today.

Bottom line, there’s a whole lot of money at stake and the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to scare Americans so they can continue to rake in the same grossly vulgar profits they have for decades. Dont believe them. Do your own research and make up your own mind.

And while we’re at it, leave the Nazis out of it — no one is like the Nazis.

Every president since Harry Truman has tried to reform health care — we’ve been working on this for 60 years. Now is the time.
ANNE SCOTT CARDWELL
Concord

Protests aren’t faked
Health care reform bill protests aren’t staged. Americans are frustrated.

Many people in Washington, D.C., won’t listen. Polls show that half (or more) of Americans oppose the health care reform bills, as currently written. We don’t oppose all health care reform — just these particular bills. They include objectionable, unnecessary legislation like tax-funded abortions, mandatory five-year consultations and oversight of the elderly regarding their end-of-life plans, expansion of Medicare while simultaneously cutting costs to it and government access to financial accounts. Together, they create a very costly, government-controlled plan that very plausibly leads to the universal single-payer plan that Barack Obama campaigned on.

There is one good thing in the bills: elimination of insurance companies’ ability to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. But this alone could be passed with great support without all the other objectionable, costly inclusions. In fact, cheaper, more beneficial means for real reform aren’t even being discussed or included. Consider the following:

* Privately-run, nonprofit regional co-ops

* Malpractice lawsuit reform

* Reduction of Medicare fraud

* Portable private plans that are competitive across states

* Expansion and increased funding of Medicare to include those who cannot afford private insurance.

The options go on. The point is: The deficit is exploding, taxes are increasing, unemployment is high and the tax revenue is in decline. Now is not the time to start another trillion-dollar government-run plan.

Ask Congress to start over, seek real reform measures (not a government-run system) and we’ll all win!
KRISTI COBB
Lynchburg

Questions remain
Having read The News & Advance’s Aug. 12 editorial and the health care Q&A on the Aug. 11 front page, I have to agree there will be no panels to decide who lives or dies.

What scares everyone who has ever dealt with Medicare and seen how little providers are paid the question is this: How do you cut $600 billion from Medicare without a limit on care?
DONNIE ROWLAND
Gretna