Day for ObamaCare

The first part of this post comes from an e-mail by Robert Bidinotto. It is followed by an e-mail I've sent to my representatives. It uses Robert's words with some of my own added to the end.

Dear Friends,

If you haven’t yet contacted your congressman (or even if you have) to oppose ObamaCare, TODAY is perhaps the last day that wavering representatives will be making up their minds.

By all reports, the House vote this weekend will be very close. Just one or two congressmen could tip the balance for or against this horrible piece of legislation. We need to show immediate, overwhelming opposition to this monstrosity.

PLEASE do what millions of other patriotic Americans have done. Call or email your congressman or congresswoman NOW.

To obtain his or her contact information, click on the link below, or copy it into your web browser:

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml

And if you run a website or blog, please post that contact information and urge your readers to weigh in.

Thanks so much for your consideration.

Robert

I shamelessly borrowed the wording Robert used in writing his representatives to contact mine in Massachusetts. I added a final paragraph of my own. The text is provided below.

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It’s now clear: Both the House's and Senate's pending health-insurance bills betray the promises and contradict the claims of their architects.

“ObamaCare,” in either version, will not provide “universal, affordable insurance,” increase “choice and competition,” or remain “deficit-neutral.” Instead, it will create a gargantuan, unaffordable, trillion-dollar entitlement monstrosity. It will explode our soaring deficits and impose huge new tax burdens on our struggling economy -- and on millions of people like me.

It also will create perverse incentives: Subsidies will inflate demand for medical services, while taxes and regulations will discourage doctors, hospitals, and inventors from providing them. That inevitably will lead to shortages, waiting lists, and rationing.

It will deprive us of choices and competition: “Mandates” will force employers to offer costly policies and force individuals (like me) to buy them. Meanwhile, private insurers will drown in seas of red ink.

The repeatedly stated goal of ObamaCare’s proponents, including the President and many congressmen, is to push us all gradually into “single-payer,” government-run health care. These bills are meant to do exactly that. They will bankrupt private insurers, wipe out our existing policies, and undermine the quality and affordability of health care.

This legislative initiative is destructive in principle: The entire coercive, bureaucratic approach is dead wrong. These bills therefore cannot be amended, fixed, or salvaged; they must be scrapped entirely.

Yes, we need health-insurance reform; but true reform must be based on the principles of free-market competition:

• allowing individuals to purchase insurance from competing companies across state lines, with the same tax-deductibility employers enjoy;

• letting individuals buy low-cost, catastrophic coverage by freeing insurers from legal requirements to offer only high-priced, comprehensive policies;

• enacting tort reforms to eliminate the costly practice of “defensive medicine.”

These steps would expand coverage to millions, while reducing costs to employers, policy-holders, and taxpayers.

I know my opinion won’t necessarily change your position. I hope that it’s clear that there also is a moral premise behind my opposition to this effort to foist an unwelcome change on the vast majority of us voters who want the freedom to chose on such an important, literally life changing issue. I’d rather create some kind of welfare program that buys insurance for those who can’t afford it than making wholesale changes in our semi-free market system that will reduce the quality and quantity of health care for everyone.

Respectfully,

Henry Scuoteguazza