An Open Letter to Republican Senators

I am writing this letter to you because I understand that you are working to save Obamacare from defeat. I have to ask you why you would do such a thing. It is apparent that you are working against the will of the American people. What is in it for you to destroy the freedom that has been lighthouse to refugees all over the world?

Is it because Ted Kennedy died and you want to pay him tribute? You can send a card, buy a wreath, or attend the funeral. You could even name your dog after him, but when you use his death to destroy freedom for my grandchildren you go too far.

Is it because you worship at the altar of bipartisanship? If you knew that your dinner was rancid, would you just add veggies, and feast on it? Bipartisanship in this case is beyond stupid. It is criminal.

I have trouble deciding if you are useful idiots, or your hubris is so great that you believe that you can do something that has never been done before—establish a socialist utopia in what has been the most shining example of freedom in the history of the world. If you look at history, there has never been a good outcome from the attempts to do just what you are doing now. If Hitler and Stalin weren’t good enough examples, check out Sadaam and Pol Pot. People died under those regimes—exponentially more than those who may have perished because of faults in our health care system. That health care system for any of its flaws is still the one that people all over the world envy.

Just this week I attended a townhall meeting where a man described our health care system as a Mercedes having a problem with the transmission, and asked why we would scrap the Mercedes to buy a Yugo. Why not just fix the transmission? Actually I think the problems we are having fall squarely in the lap of our politicians who are eager to destroy the good to achieve the mediocre.

And, how are you going to pay for this nightmare? You have managed to drive corporations offshore with the second highest corporate tax in the world, and now you want to tax small businesses out of existence. Once you have spent all the golden eggs and had the goose for dinner, where are you going to find the money to support your agenda. Oh! Yes! That is when you start the real tyranny. How long before we get to the concentration camps, or are you just looking at using plastic shredders? Hyperbole? Possibly, but you can’t have tyranny without coercion, and I can’t think of any tyranny in history that didn’t devolve into unspeakable methods of corralling those misguided few who believe in freedom and independent thought. Tyranny starts small, but it is a voracious beast, and with the stimulus, cap and trade, and then health care, it is a beast on steroids. And if you think we aren't talking about tyranny, try opting out of government programs.

You may think you know what is best for all of us. You may think that you and your family are safe from the evil that you are doing, but with tyranny no one is safe. If you really want to do what is right, just look to the Constitution, and the wisdom of the founding fathers. They managed to get their education before the government decided that education should be daycare, producing graduates incapable of reading, or critical thinking--graduates who have so little scientific knowledge that they can be tricked into giving up even more freedom to support a hoax.

Please, for all of our sakes, look at what you are doing. Take a step back and quit destroying our country. We have great work to do to retrieve our lost freedoms, but for a start, just say NO! to Obamacare. Don’t fix it. Defeat it.

I wrote a letter to my congressman and senators this morning and cc'ed the local press. Here's my letter:

I’m writing to ask your support in opposing the national health care bill. This bill is a huge mistake that will cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars. The current American health care system is the best in the world; People from countries with socialized healthcare come here for treatment.

Past attempts to “fix” the health care in this country, like Medicaid, resulted in bloated programs that cost over 70 times what they were estimated to cost when they were created. President Obama has said he won’t support a health care reform bill that will add to our exploding deficit. But the Congressional Budget Office says these proposals will increase the federal deficit. I don’t see any way that this program can be solvent without a huge tax increase.

The exclusion of pre-existing conditions in the proposed bill sounds nice, but in reality it will be a disaster. Why will people pay for insurance if they can wait until they’re sick and get it then? Insurance depends on people who will make few claims balancing out the people who make many. This won’t happen with the new system and the only people on it will be the most expensive to insure. This ultimately drives up costs and forces the remaining healthy people so go elsewhere (as happened in Maine).

States like Maine, Massachusetts, and Hawaii have tried socialized medicine and in all cases the cost is many times more than the estimates and the result has been a failure. People who have private healthcare insurance drop their coverage to enroll in the government programs and costs skyrocket.

The bills impose an individual mandate on me to buy health insurance approved by the Federal government. What will happen to me if I don’t go along? Will non-compliance penalties apply to illegal aliens the same as to American citizens and legal aliens?

Despite claims by the Whitehouse that the program will not include illegal aliens, the figures that they use in their argument for a “failed system” of 47 million uninsured includes them. Attempts by Republican lawmakers to add verbiage to specifically exclude illegal aliens has been blocked. How is if fair that I pay for the medical care of people who have ignored our laws and haven’t paid into the system?

The bill requires employers to provide insurance for all employees or face a fine. This will cause small businesses to cut back or drive them out of business. The end result will be that entry level jobs will disappear and the tax base will shrink as small businesses go under. The newly unemployed will have to use the public option, but will not have money to pay for their share. The burden then falls on the remaining taxpayers.

Governors of both parties have strongly objected to current proposals, saying that mandated expansion of Medicaid will put an intolerable fiscal burden on struggling state treasuries and taxpayers. This is essentially an unfunded federal mandate that will push the states into bankruptcy.

As currently proposed, “qualified” health insurance plans must include all “essential benefits” as determined by federal officials. The majority continues to force inclusion of elective abortions as an “essential benefit,” insurance companies must provide and taxpayers must subsidize. What will you do to protect insurance providers and citizens whose consciences require them not to provide or finance elective abortions?

Exploding medical malpractice claims are driving doctor and hospital malpractice insurance premiums ever upward. This increases scarcity of doctors in certain high-risk fields, like obstetrics, which decreases access and increases cost. Why are there no provisions in any of the bills to rectify this problem? If you want to decrease medical costs, you need to have tort reform, reduce the cost of doing business for health care providers, and encourage people to become healthcare professionals.

As it stands today, the favored bill contains a “public option”—a government-run insurance company “to keep the private insurers honest.” Will this government-run company pay taxes, pay for its own revenue collection and marketing costs, and pay market interest rates on its debt? Or will it enjoy government backing that will enable it to undersell its private competitors, swallow up their customers, and become a new “Medicare for Everybody”?

Medicare is $36 trillion out of actuarial balance and will run out of hospitalization benefit funds by 2017. How will the government-run “public option” insurance company avoid turning into another Medicare disaster? And how will our senior citizens on Medicare continue to get medical services?

And I’ve saved the best for last. What gives the federal government the right to do this? There is no Constitutional mandate that allows the federal government to take over health care. In the past Congress has misused the interstate commerce statement to justify its interference in the free market. (The Constitution gives Congress the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." The word "regulate" meant, at that time, to make regular, or uniform.)

In summary, this bill is unfair to taxpayers, it will drive up the deficit, it will hurt the people it’s designed to help by eliminating jobs and limiting healthcare for the elderly, it’s unconstitutional, the provision to force Americans to pay for abortions is immoral, and it’s anti-free market.

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