Herald readers debate health care reform To the Editor”

Our personal health, literally, depends on finding ways to make health care affordable for all. The issue of reforming insurance companies policies is only part of what needs to be done; yet it has become the sole focus of the debate. All the nay-sayers of this issue that I have personally heard sound like those who have always stood in the way of human progress and exploration.

I imagine (and in some instances there is written proof) that those against Galileo, Copernicus, Columbus, Pasteur, Salk, Einstein, etc used the same snide and sarcastic arguments we are hearing about health care reform. Even the founding of this nation was the occasion for derisive laughter in parts of Europe. All these pioneers, innovators and visionaries had to fight the same fearfulness and angry certainty of the power brokers of their times.

If you are a person without health insurance and unable to get it under existing insurance rules why shouldn’t you be able to sign up for Medicare, pay its monthly premium just like those of us over 65 can do.

Last year it cost the taxpayers of U.S. Texas House District No. 31 $66 million for uninsured citizens to use area emergency rooms because they had no way to go to a doctor before they became so sick.

Wouldn’t it have been better for all of us in this district if the uninsured became insured by a Medicare type public option than that we had to be taxed an extra $66 million to treat them in emergency rooms, I think so and it is something we should all think about as the debate goes forward. To quote Michael Kazin: “For all its flaws, the national state is the only common political ground we have.”

Posted on Sunday, November 15, 2009 by Glenda Turck Killeen