More On Health Care

By -
I received an e-newsletter from one of my US Senators, Roland W. Burris, today. In it he spoke of health care reform. The following is an email I sent to him. I have no expectations of a response, but I am interested to see if there are any thoughts on the issue from any of you dear readers.

Dear Senator Burris,

I have corresponded with you in the past and received a formulaic response that has led me to believe that you will never actually read this letter, but I am going to write anyway, hoping against hope that somehow you will hear of my concerns and take steps toward resolving them.

I received your e-newsletter this afternoon, and read with interest your desire to establish a federally-run "public option" to provide competition within the health care insurance industry and to lower costs. I have a couple questions that I hope you will try to answer.

First, how is it that a federally-run program, that is available to anyone in the United States who desires to participate, can provide meaningful competition to private insurers who can only offer insurance to those who live within their states? How is it that a program available to nearly 308 million people can be competed against by a program that, in Illinois, can only insure the 12.9 million people that call Illinois home? If the public option is to provide competition, Sir, I respectfully ask that the US Senate allow for true competition. Please suggest an amendment to any one of the several bills now being considered on the Senate floor that will allow for interstate trade of health insurance. If the public option is to be available to all 308 million Americans, so should every other insurance option now available.

My second question is this: how do you expect the federal government to run a program in a way that will save money and avoid waste, fraud, and abuse? Please give me one example of the federal government doing this with any one of the myriad programs that currently exist. Please admit, Sir, that our federal government has a horrific track record when it comes to being fiscally sound. I do not understand how you expect the American people, let alone those of us in Illinois whom you represent, to believe that a new federal program will save money when all we have seen, throughout our nation's 233 years, are federal programs that exceed budgets and increase debt.

Senator Burris, I believe our nation's health insurance industry needs reformation. But this reformation needs to be hit from every side. Republicans want interstate trade and tort reform. Democrats want a public option. Please realise that these are not mutually exclusive objectives.

Thank you.

Comments

Titus Todd said…
I wrote my three reprentatives, one who happens to be a blue dog Democrat. I got the usual form letter back though Orrin Hatch's office actually seems to take more time in their responses show at least someone read my letter.

Even without a Public Option we're going to get there eventually and the first step on that road is whatever Congress passes soon. It will pass without a single Republican vote. Measures taken will drive all private insurers out of business and thus everyone will have no choice but to turn to the feds for healthcare coverage.
January 13, 2010 at 8:11 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crafty Craftiness

By -
Image
So... um, so much for writing a new blog post once a week. I don't even remember how long it took for me to stop. I keep meaning to update, but then life happens and I don't get around to it. I probably have too many blogs that I try to keep up with in the first place. I update my teaching blog every day there is school. I update the million minutes blog a few times each month, and I thoroughly neglect the GreedCycle blog that Gretch and I started over a year ago. Anyway, Gretch and I have had a lot going on, but since we really don't  want our blog to be just medical updates, I haven't been writing about them. And since the day-to-day activities of our lives rarely seem to be "blog-worthy" (other than my teaching which, as already mentioned, is blogged about elsewhere), I end up not updating this blog as much as I probably should. Who knows, maybe I'll get back into the swing of things this year. New year, new chance to hold myself to a standard of u
Read more

And This Is Life Eternal

By -
Many of you know that I am a professional educator. I work in the Freeport School District as the Curriculum Coordinator for 21st Century Teaching and Learning. Whenever I have the opportunity to share this with others upon meeting them for the first time, one of the first questions I get is, “Is that your real hair?” Apparently, there are things people care about more than know what it means to coordinate the teaching and learning efforts of an entire century. (The answer, by the way, is yes, this is my real hair; no, I don’t dye it; yes, it really is this curly; and no, you cannot touch it to see if it is actually a wig.)  Once I am able to get the discussion about my amazing naturally curly hair out of the way, we get back to the question of what it is I actually do. My favourite way to describe my job is that I am a teacher of teachers and that my main responsibility is to get them to put away the worksheets and step away from the PowerPoint so that they can engage their student
Read more

Who Are You?

By -
A thought has been running through my mind this morning and it doesn't seem to be planning on leaving any time soon. I have things I need to get done (such as applying for more jobs for the coming school year), so I am hoping that this may help me at least share the thought well enough that I can worry about other things. The thought is really more of a question. Who am I? Who are you? How do I define myself? How do you define yourself? So often in our lives, we have opportunities to introduce ourselves to new people. I've mentioned before how I have this habit of introducing myself as Alex Valencic but, if I am writing my name, it is always Alex T. Valencic. After sharing my name, it is inevitable that someone will want to know more about me, and the first thing they ask is what I do. How we respond to this question says a lot about what we think of ourselves, I think. When someone asks me what I do, I respond by either saying I am a teacher or I am a professional educat
Read more