Letter on Healthcare to My Congresswoman.

Representative Pingree,



I refuse to allow House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the other Democratic Machine Thugs to bully me into silence. As an American citizen I have a right to speak out against those things I believe will harm our nation and its people. I sincerely hope you listen to my concerns, as they are not just for me, but for following generations and our Nation as a whole.


President Obama’s health care plan will devastate our nation, and I’m writing you today voicing my strongest opposition to this plan that would pass along another massive tax increase on the American people. What’s more, why is it President Obama’s plan at all? Who wrote it? Who is writing it? Who is going to be the benefactor of this plan if passed? It certainly isn’t medical experts writing it, nor will it be the American people benefiting. I am one P.O.’d constituent. Your ‘Listening Tour’ occurred when this issue was still under the RADAR and the Waxley-Markey Bill (Cap and Trade Bill) was saturating the news. You have not come out to ‘Listen’ to the People during this recess. Why? Are you selectively ‘Listening’? Your constituents’ want to let you know how angry and frustrated we are. Where is your “Town Hall”?


During a time when American taxpayers are being crushed under the weight of too much taxation and a swelling 10 percent unemployment rate, now is not the time to pass a measure that has is sure to cripple the economy in the years ahead! And that is from your own Congressional Budget Office!


These are some of the main things we can and should focus on to ‘Tweak’, not ‘Overhaul’ the health care system in this country. They are what I already know and feel, but were recently voiced also by Whole Foods CEO, John MaCay, they are as follows:


 1. Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. This gives the consumer of the health care a direct link to the routine costs and empowers them to seek the best providers for the money spent, and to aid in driving the routine costs down via economic pressure.


2. Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Currently, employer health insurance benefits are 100% tax deductible, but individual health insurance plans are not. This is blatantly unfair. I suspect that this was by design in the past to force more people to seek the protection of Unions and Union benefits.


3. Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.


4. Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.


5. Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?


6. Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.


7. Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.


Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?


Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America. If we start saying health care is a ‘right’, then where do we draw the line? Will child care become the next right? Transportation? A New Home?


In this Nation, we are all given the power to succeed or fail, do well, or do poorly, to achieve our dreams and goals if we try. We are not guaranteed anything! I worked for 22 years to ensure that I would be covered by a good insurance plan. I did that because I knew what it took to get good health insurance. I had to work hard, and seek an employer who provided who health insurance. If my employer didn’t have the plan that would cover me, I would have sought another employer. I knew I had to have skills desired by an employer who provided good insurance so I obtained them by training and education. I also used to sell health insurance in Maine, and the product I sold cold have been far far less expensive, but for all the restrictive rules and regulations on Maine insurers. Government IS NOT THE ANSWER, it is the PROBLEM.

Please, revise your stance, join with me in staunch OPPOSITION of Obama’s socialized health care plan, and come up with Common Sense solutions vice more failed socialistic ideas.


As a constituent of yours, I am carefully, carefully, watching your actions on this bill.


Sincerely,


J(*&T$&&  Mc&%^$W


Now as you can Imagine, I have YET to recieve a response from my esteemed congresswoman. I actually had the good fortune to attend her ONE and ONLY public appearance during the summer break. I asked her a multipart question touching on jobs and healthcare and she gave me legal/campaign speak. No answers. This congresswoman and other sell-out Dems like her are trying to destroy our government by forcing a public option for health insurance. What say you?