Since the pre-election campaign, anything Barak Obama does is the stuff of imagination and wing-nut controversy. The recent attempt by the Obama administration to survey the American Street - specifically aimed at identifying misinformation about healthcare - was posted on the White House website. You probably saw it.
This request for rumors, of course, was predictably condemned by right wing blogs/talk radio as a brownshirt conspiracy to get neighbors to turn-in neighbors who held the 'wrong' views.
To me it just seemed like an efficient way to collect a list of rumors so that they could be addressed. Anyhow, when someone asks my opinion... they get it.
----- Original Message -----
From: DEN
To: flag@whitehouse.gov
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 08:45
Subject: rumors about healthcare
I am opposed to "improvement" in the healthcare system that will make it worse for those of us who have worked, contributed and retired assuming a certain level of access to healthcare. I believe that the other countries that have government-run healthcare systems, such as England and Canada have inferior programs to that which exists in the US for the majority of us in the middle class. Besides, these countries have a much tighter enforcement of immigration laws and they do not provide virtually free services for up to 20 million illegal immigrants - as we would.
I am absolutely opposed to lawmakers dictating a level of healthcare for me that they themselves do not participate in.
I believe no one should vote for a bill unless they have personally read it; I think this would slow down the spending of money that we do not have, and that would be a good thing.
I do not feel confident that the Obama healthcare plan is a real plan at all, and all we get are snippets of what might be in and what might be out, I feel uneasy about it.
I am an independent, voted for Obama, hoping for the best. I like the way he is handling foreign policy, but am fearful that the bailouts have been a huge waste of money. I am retired and have lost nearly 50% of my nestegg in recent downturn. I am still hopeful but getting more pessimistic with every news cycle.
Here are some of the scary stories that I have heard:
1) the Healthcare bill has provisions to attach citizens bank accounts and make withdrawals without notice
2) I will eventually be forced to change my healthcare plan to the government run plan, then I will be treated just like everyone who has never contributed to social security, or even paid taxes.
3) With 50 million people being added to the system, decisions about my health will be made on a purely economic basis. The government will decide who gets what services.
4) Young non-citizens will get preferred treatment over older citizens.
5) People who have retired under company pension plans will find that the plan that they expected to have will be involuntarily switched to the government(public) option at the discretion of the company.
I think the administration needs to address these and other concerns with honesty and concise language. President Obama has not proved to be a good spokesman for this program - he rambles all over the place when asked specific questions (It's probably just as well that the only thing anyone recalls from the failed healthcare press conference is the "Cambridge cops acted stupidly")
Yours truly,
=====================================
If I get in trouble, somebody please bail me out.
5 comments:
It may (or may not) be true that the healthcare most middle-class Americans have access to is superior to the government run systems of the UK or Canada (though probably not France), it is also true that this is true only in the aggregate, not necessarily for individuals. You may be one of the lucky ones who's had relatively good health throughout your working and post-working life. But how well does our system work when someone can be denied coverage for an expensive cancer treatment because they failed to mention an outbreak of acne a decade earlier, or someome with a chronic ailment such as MS is essentially locked out of the job market because no employer wants to take on an employee who will burden their health insurance plan? And if we look at all Americans, not just the middle class, it's quite clear by all objective measures, such as infant mortality and longevity, in the aggregate our health system is inferior to virtually every other industrialized nation - even though we spend substantially more. So the choice is: Do you want a health care system that is just best for you as an individual (assuming that you'll be relatively healthy throught your life span) or do you want a system that is best for all Americans? I posit, that we can have both by enacting a public health system that allows the better off to purchase additional coverage that allows access to more esoteric treatments. But to choose only the former will eventually erode our national energy and drive down the standard of living for all. Just food for thought.
How about just light tan or maybe even ecru shirts?
Re: Rick's comments -- why must we all view health care reform from the bottom of a well? You know, we are forecasting the weather from a small patch of the sky.
Also charity feels a lot better when it is voluntary ... not when we are forced into it by nabobs flying around in Gulfstream jets on our nickel.
And Rick ... a few paragraphs please!
Shouldn't the blog owner tell people how much space they can use to speak their mind?
Capt. -- I meant paragraph breaks, not space allocated. Makes things easier to understand.
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