Dear Editor:
We Americans need good healthcare the same as we need good jobs, clean air, water, safety and security. Too many of us can’t get health insurance because it’s too expensive or we’ve been denied coverage. Pres. Obama’s plan solves this problem by offering a plan in two parts:
1. If you have a private insurance plan and like it, you can keep it.
2. Or you can choose a “public option” where the government will offer a plan like Medicare, the high quality, very successful, popular plan for seniors over 65. It will be low-cost, high-quality and you can choose any doctor. In Medicare, the government does NOT get between you and your doctor, and Medicare has NO bureaucracies as big as the many insurance companies have now. You’ll be able to keep the public plan if you lose or change jobs and you can’t be denied coverage or pay a higher rate if you get sick. With this competition, the insurance companies will have to keep prices low to keep your business – you will have a choice at last.
The opponents are spreading misinformation all over TV and radio and the internet. It’s socialism, or rationing; both scare tactics and untrue. Government takeover of healthcare, huge costs; again untrue scare stuff.
Right now the insurance companies and all Republicans oppose Pres. Obama’s plan. And many weak Democrats are afraid to support it. Both get large campaign contributions from the insurance companies. Since the insurers will be forced to compete, they’ll lose their stranglehold on you and billions of dollars in excess profits they make. If you want to be in control of your healthcare to choose what YOU want, you must tell your congressman and senator in Washington. They are the only ones who can pass or defeat Obama’s plan.
Free call number to congress: 1-866-338-1015. (Call more than once if you wish and have your family and friends call too.)
Tell your senators (Bond and McCaskill) and your representative in congress to pass this plan without watering in down because you want to be in control and able to choose what YOU want in a health plan.
Robert Recht
St. Louis, Mo
