Hi Everyone – Below is a letter to the editor I wrote to the Valley News which is in today’s edition:
Watching President Obama’s speech last Wednesday to Congress I was struck by the President’s claim that “reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan”. He believes he can find “hundreds of billions of dollars” of fraud and waste inside of Medicare. Am I the only one who sees the clear cognitive dissonance in the fact that the President says he will cut the waste, fraud, and abuse from one government program to pay for – wait for it – another brand new government program?!
Certainly any new government plan with a new government bureaucracy will have its own billions of dollar’s worth of waste, fraud, and abuse. I would not be surprised if the next suggestion for reform of a significant part of our economy from the President will be paid for by the waste, fraud, and abuse of the health care reform he is now proposing.
It seems to me that we can fix the problems in the health insurance industry well short of creating a massive, entrenched, new federal system. It is wrong that paying customers could be dropped or denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, and it should be outlawed. Also, let’s give tax credits to the uninsured so they can buy their own plan out of the 1,300 plans that already exist today across state lines, much like we do already with our car insurance. If the insurance industry does not play ball, then regulate them heavily, like utilities, to make them contribute to real reform.
What concerns me most is the government option along with a proposed fee to mandate insurance for employers and individuals. I could see why many businesses, especially small business, would rather pay the fee instead of continuing to pay for their employee’s health insurance premiums. This would lead to many more millions of Americans being forced into the government plan than the President and the Congress originally anticipated leading to unintended consequences, much higher deficits and national debt, and higher taxes to make up the difference.
Larry J. Dougher Jr
Windsor, VT
September 28, 2009 at 11:16 pm |
Larry, you make excellent points. But I wonder why Healthcare has to be tied to business at all? I see a limited public option as a regulator of the Huge Fraudulent and selfish Healthcare Industry today. I can’t say how the President got to his figures but I wonder about the amount myself? Maybe he could keep going through all government services? But, I wonder if the fraudulent and corrupt congress would let him? Remember, this President is only as good as the congress allows.
I agree, there is nothing more sickening than an insurance company denying a claim or service to anyone while writing a huge bonus check to themselves. Perhaps the Congress will place moral penalties on these abusers? Maybe they could expand Medicare/Medicaid to pick up the more needy?
I have been watching the HC panel discuss this and find them to be very disappointing. It appears to me, and many others I might add, that the congress is more concerned with these huge Insurance cooperatives incomes and less concerned with the care of their clients. The Bachus Bill was rotten with Insurance giveaways. I hope they will submit a common sense plan to clean up and manage the Healthcare Industry which is what is needed.
Thank you,
Fred Patterson
Windsor
PS: Perhaps you heard about Chuck Schumer and Wall Street? Shameful what they have done to our country and constitution.