Letters To The Editor
HEALTH CARE
Editor’s Note: As Congress, the Clinton administration, various interest groups and millions of average Americans ponder what, if anything, to do about ensuring the availability of affordable care for all, some few share their thoughts with fellow readers of The SpokesmanReview.
A constitutional imperative
The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The U.S. Constitution is designed to set up a governmental system that secures those rights that are not really so inalienable in actuality.
The right to life is denied every day for 37 million Americans who do not have health care because they cannot afford the premiums. Millions more have their right to life violated and are subjected to extortion by exclusions and pre-existing conditions on health insurance contracts that end when employment or financial conditions change.
Overlooked in the current debate on health care is the constitutional right to life. This means that any plan with less than 100 percent coverage is unconstitutional, that any slow phase-in of universal coverage is unconstitutional and that Congress has been in violation of the Constitution for 50 years by failing to pass a law for universal health care.
If Americans really have a right to life, they must have immediate universal access to health care, regardless of how much money they make or the kinds of jobs they hold. There must be no exclusions for preexisting conditions or an unconstitutional bias against the working poor.
The congressional debate on payment is not a justifiable delay. Every payment plan that has been put forth is being used in some other country. All would work here. Richard H. Stalter Ephrata, Wash.
First, fix veterans hospitals
Before President Clinton socializes American medical care, he should clean up the Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals.
These hospitals are America’s shining example of socialized medicine, and they are so bad that only vets with no other choice go there.
What’s more, the Department of Defense hospitals are scarcely better. Anyone who has tried to call in for an appointment at Fairchild Air Force Base knows that health care rationing is here in practice, if not in name.
If Canada’s socialized health care is so great, why did the prime minister of one province go to Florida for surgery?
If Clinton thinks Western Europe’s health care financed by employer mandates is so great, he should also comment on what he thinks of the region’s double-digit unemployment. German labor is now the most expensive in the world.
So let’s have Bill clean up the veterans hospitals and the military hospitals. These hospitals are lost in the ‘60s. All of the wonderful things that Clinton has promised to do for American medicine he should do for the vets first. After all, no one is more deserving than our vets.
Clinton, whose combat experience is limited to signing up for ROTC at the University of Arkansas, should remember that. G.L. Nelson Colbert
No to socialized medicine
As a freedom-loving American who believes in traditional family values, I think the majority of our people want to keep the liberty of choosing their own doctors and health care.
To keep this freedom, we must each take a stand by letting our congressmen know what we think. We can no longer sit back and let someone else do it.
We can keep our right to choose our own doctors.
We can stop the rationing of health care.
We can stop denial of health care.
We can stop huge tax increases and a national health board.
It is wrong and unfair to mandate that Americans subsidize abortion which is murder - or force employers to cover abortion.
Everyone who values freedom should call their congressional representative today and ask them to vote no on all health care plans. That victory depends on each of us. Vote no for socialized medicine. Joyce Allison Airway Heights
This prescription has a sting
The problem: Health insurance costs too much.
Government solution: Make the employers pay for it.
The scam: Makes employees think they’re getting a deal.
The sting: Employees get lower raises, get laid off or the business closes altogether. Lucinda Carroll Spokane
Single payer plan essential
“Panel’s ruling limits choice of doctors” (Spokesman-Review, Aug. 2) tells us how “managed competition” health care plans save money.
There is an alternative but it seems unknown to the media: “single-payer.”
Single payer is the prime target of the largest lobbying effort ever seen in Washington, D.C. Insurance companies are the primary - but not the only - opponents of single payer. Misconceptions and lies are used. What is needed are facts.
The following is from the American Health Security Act (single payer) bill sponsored by Washington Rep. Jim McDermott:
The U.S. average health care funds spent on administration is 17 percent. Canada spends less than 2 percent. “The difference in real dollars between insurance companyprovided health insurance and single payer is enough to pay for all the costs of providing health insurance to the uninsured.”
“Under single payer … everyone who wants to can continue to receive their health care exactly the same way they always have.” You can keep your own doctor.
The Congressional Budget Office says single payer will save over $114 billion a year, more than any other proposal. Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen has a nationwide effort for single payer. California has single payer on the state’s November ballot.
Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, endorsed single payer. The League of Women Voters has a Health Care Line, 1-800-FACTS-94. Hillary Clinton said that single payer is best but not politically passable (she knows the power of insurance lobbyists!). At last count, 91 representatives have signed in favor of single payer.
Now for the bad news: Single payer means that insurance companies will not continue to profit from your health care expenditures.
Too bad. Julian Powers Spokane