Health care bill is not the change Americans need
Dear Editor:
Our current elected representatives, Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Roland Burris, and House Rep. Debbie Halverson, including many others in Congress, are obviously not listening to the vast majority of the American people, as the massive 1,990 page Healthcare Bill has just been produced by Congress. This bill is very, very bad for the American people and our country as a whole.
This bill will:
1. Cost the American people over $1.05 trillion dollars, money that the government does not have. The bill is loaded with budgeting gimmicks to make the bill look like it doesn’t add to the deficit, but anyone with common sense knows better.
2. Expand an already bloated federal government work force while adding $700 billion in new taxes that eventually will be passed on to all American citizens both poor, middle class and, of course, the wealthy.
3. Expand Medicaid cost to our state of Illinois, which is already in financial trouble.
4. Cut Medicare Advantage and Medicare prescription drug payments for seniors.
5. Limit private health care choices for individuals, and will eventually drive medical costs up even more than they already are.
6. Require all Americans to purchase health care insurance and places Washington bureaucrats between doctors and patients.
7. Create government death panels.
8. Allow our tax dollars to pay for abortions.
9. Impose an 8 percent tax on businesses that doesn’t cover specified percentages of their employees’ health insurance. In the short term, this will only result in job losses and lower wages. Our economy cannot afford to lose any more jobs.
10. Lay the foundation for complete government take over of the health care economy.
Why does health care reform have to be 1,990 pages? I believe Congress could reduce this bill to just 20 pages in simple English. Reform should be just that “Reform” and not a plan for government to reinvent our health care industry.
If the health care plan Congress is proposing is so great, why doesn’t Congress insert the word “Shall” instead of the word “May” on the page where the bill addresses the members of Congress’ choice of their health care plan?
If Congress is not willing to have the same plan as they expect the American people to have, then the question I submit to Congress is, “why force me to give up the health care plan I prefer?” I believe that this bill Congress is attempting to set into law is “unconstitutional.” Please, Congress, show me where in the constitution the Federal Government can make me purchase health insurance?
The government continues to fail in every attempt to help the American people. Medicare and Social Security are both underfunded and broke. These entitlements are layered with abuse, waste and fraud that the taxpayers ultimately are saddled with because of the government’s lack of oversight and control.
Fannie and Freddie are both government run entities, along with Congress, that caused the mortgage meltdown and the bank failure by requiring banks to loan money to people who could not repay.
The huge stimulus bill that was to create jobs and keep unemployment under 8 percent has failed, and yet the administration keeps spinning the truth. Simple math that becomes creative math just doesn’t add up. The American people are not naive or stupid.
The deficit has grown to $13 trillion under President Obama and the Democratic Congress. When is enough, enough? When do our representatives and others in Congress stand up and say “Let’s stop spending the people’s money irresponsibly? Let’s develop a strategy to examine our broken entitlement programs and fix those programs before first continuing on the path of spending more of the American people’s money.” Congress is unaccountably sending our country into further recession, creating higher unemployment, devaluating our currency while steering us towards bankruptcy.
While President Obama ran on the platform of change, I do not believe the change he is trying to implement is the change the American people had in mind. Government is already too intrusive in our lives, and I am opposed to any additional attempts to change our country and limit individual rights that results in more loss of personal freedoms.
With government bailing out the banks, insurance companies, General Motors and Chrysler, the government now owns interest in approximately 48 percent of our private economy. Add the health care industry to the aforementioned businesses: the government may well control more than 60 percent of our economy.
Non-elected officials known as Czars are now making decisions to tell private businesses how much individuals can make. These takeovers are nothing more than a “power grab” of the private sector and our personal freedoms. Where does all this madness end?
Congress needs to admit that all in Washington is corrupt and broke. I urge each of the members in Congress to become part of the solution instead of the ongoing problem. Change is what we need in this country, but the change I am referring to is in voting and removing the career politicians who have lost touch with the American people. Term limits is the only solution.
