Hello,
I just wanted to contact you to share my opinion on the health care debate. For statistical reasons, I'm 39, permanently disabled due to SMA, use an electric wheelchair full-time, unable to find work, dependent on SSDI, Medicaid, and Medicare.
I support comprehensive health care reform. I believe it is the moral thing to do today. I am not religious, but I don't feel we should continue to treat our fellow man's total health according to profit motive. I believe it is time to take care of each other's needs as best as we can.
Believe me, I align my political views with the libertarians and would ultimately love to see a small Federal government, but since neither major party today is supporting that goal, the least we could do is use the power the government has to help people.
I don't like what the current bill has become, and I would rather support the public option, but I'm afraid of what will happen if we do nothing right now. People are dying for no better reason than because someone can make a dollar off of it.
Thankfully, myself, and my immediate family have good enough health care coverage, but many of my friends are forced to live without coverage, and many others are forced to keep working at terrible jobs just so they don't lose there coverage. I hear many say that government should stay out of our health care decisions, but government is already there in so many ways it isn't funny.
Government has shaped the current problems we find ourselves in by choosing to get involved in health care coverage decisions since the 40's; by selectively choosing to support employer-based coverage via tax breaks, by starting Medicare and allowing insurance companies to dump all of their covered people at age 65 on the government, and by selectively allowing certain evil insurance practices to continue simply because of money in politics and campaign contributions. Since these government forces continue to shape health care decisions, government alone is the only force left to turn them around for the positive.
In conclusion, I stand on the side of comprehensive reform with a single payer system ala Anthony Weiner's Medicare for all proposal. If that can't happen right now, I support competitive reform with the public option. If even that can't happen, I still support some minimal reform to stop the most evil practices done by the insurance companies today.
So, I ask you to choose for the common good in the decisions ahead. I hope that all members of the congress and senate consider the impact they can have for the good of all Americans in the few days.
Robert Stump Jr.
