13 August 2009

This Healthcare debate - is not

I recently started to follow a blog called Helen and Margaret. They have quite a following and even if the premise of their being 82 is false - I still like what whoever is writing it. Today they started talking about the healthcare debate. Not that's it is really a debate. I'd love to see a discussion about facts. I've read much about it in blogs, TIME and listened to people on their radio shows - and admittedly I've gone out of my way to ignore Limbaugh and his ilk. I don't like what I'm seeing on the news or reports from what seems to be 'staged' town talks. Canada has a perfectly good health system. We don't. Having recently lost my job I can speak to some aspects of this - COBRA is totally not the program for people who have lost their jobs - as far as I can tell it's just another way for insurance copies to bleed the hurting public. Thankfully the Obama government has forced them to offer a 'discount' to people like me that matches what my former company paid for my health care versus the cost they desired - 3.8 times what it cost. I just don't get it - you'd think they would want to maintain as large a pool as possible....not the shrinking employee count the situation currently represents.

I'd like to look forward to a future with an option for insurance from my government - honestly, with a pool that large how could it not represent smaller monthly payments. It's just another form of Medicare. One that I can join now instead of waiting until I'm older. As for the debate regarding rationing of healthcare - hey my current insurance coverage does that quite well right now - what do I really have to fear from the government?

It’s about fear.

The government has been spending fast and furiously the last six months and proposing legislation that’s likely to come with tons of new regulations.

Our national debt has soared and it’s upsetting and scaring many people. Some of them are getting quite vocal about it, especially when it appears to them, right or wrong, that health care reform is going to have a negative impact on them.

I voted for this president. I’m proud of that vote and stand by that vote. However, he and every other elected official up for reelection on my ballot has to earn my vote for the next election. Health care reform full of pork and unneeded regulatory red tape will not earn my vote.Health care reform that reduces my benefits or makes them more expensive will not earn my vote.

But I’m not going to go out there and yell and scream about it, no matter how much I’d like to. I might write some more emails though . . . .