LTE Update - My LTE supporting the Health Care bills was

[hedgehog]

published in the local bi-weekly in this heavily Republican Upstate New York Area. Today's issue has my second letter answering the paper's two anti-health care editorials ( both the publisher and his son have editorials), two letters against the health care bill and two letters for the health care bill. So, two people who thought they were alone took up a pen and wrote a LTE to support the health care legislation apparently in response to me.

[ShortnFiery]

1. Kudos for your thoughtful efforts! ... more of us should act as such. :-)

:thumbsup: :hi:

[NewJeffCT]

2. good job - do you have a link to it

or, can you copy & paste it here?

[hedgehog]

3. Here's my second letter - notice that I used the neutral term

"incorrect" rather than the loaded term "false". This way, I'm not accusing people of lying but of being misinformed.

I included Reagen's comments from 1961 to put some of today's hysteria in perspective.

.....

To the Editor:

I note that the editorial “Government-run healthcare would be costly and cumbersome” appears to be based on an internet posting by “Someone (who) apparently has read the entire healthcare bill that congress will be voting on soon.” Someone? Apparently? This is not exactly a reliable source. I would suggest people read the bill themselves or check with the AARP (http://bulletin.aarp.org) for explanations.

The Between the Lines column, “Unearthing the content of health-care legislation should lead to its undoing,” references an article in World magazine. Some of the explanations are incorrect.

“The government will define your ‘health benefits’ (30:13–30:18).” True, a panel made up of people from across the health-care field, including representatives of consumers and the insurance companies as well as at least one practicing physician, will decide what must be covered in an insurance policy. Right now, the person who decides your health benefits is an insurance company employee protecting profits. Some think having the panel would be an improvement.

“The government will ration your care (29.4–29.16).” Incorrect. This part is about limiting your out-of-pocket expenses, not your coverage:

“The government will order you to get end-of-life counseling and show proof (pg. 424, line 20–page 425, line 23).” Incorrect: If you want to discuss a living will with your doctor, you and he can get together once every five years and Medicare will pay for his time. No one is forced to have the discussion, ever.

“The government will not let you sue over coverage limits and costs decisions (pg. 124, line 4–pg. 125, line 2).” Incorrect: What this says is that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will decide what providers will get paid by the public health-insurance company. Private health-insurance companies will set their own reimbursement rates. Other parts of the bill ensure that there is no limit on your coverage. Your insurance won’t run out just when you need it the most.

“The government will have access to your bank accounts (pg. 59, line 21–pg. 60, line 8).” Incorrect: This is about cutting paperwork and costs by having the government and the insurance companies use direct deposit to pay the providers. In any case, many people already have chosen direct deposit of Social Security and income-tax refunds.

There are many articles speculating that the health-care reform bill is just the first step to socialism, rationing, euthanasia, etc. To put things into perspective, here’s what Ronald Reagan had to say about the Medicare bill back in 1961:

“The doctor begins to lose freedom.… First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then doctors aren’t equally divided geographically. So a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him, you can’t live in that town. They already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it’s only a short step to dictating where he will go.… All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it’ a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay. And pretty soon your son won’t decide, when he’s in school, where he will go, or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do. Write those letters now. Call your friends, and tell them to write them. If you don’t, this program I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day…. we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don’t do this, and if I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”