October 20, 2009

Our response to Obama re: Health Care Reform

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate the respect you showed me by responding. However, you have not actually addressed the question I posed in my email. I asked how my family would be affected by the bill due to the fact that private insurance is our livelihood and has done a great job at giving me the quality of life I have while I deal with a very rare condition.

I agree with the theory that all Americans should have free Healthcare. Forcing people to acquire this care through the government is not a viable road and is taking away my choice. Americans should not be fined if they choose to not have healthcare.

Although in the past some insurance companies have been underhanded they do take a great risk when insuring someone with a pre-existing condition. We pay 16 thousand a year for our insurance due to my disability. However, the insurance has spent more on me than I have had to pay. You can not guarantee my quality of life if I am forced into a cookie cutter plan. Just to be clear I spent many years with out insurance and many before that on military benefits and the private insurance has given me much more than the government. Insurance companies have the right to protect themselves and to make some profit.

SCHIP has existed for years and to continue and even build on this program is not you doing something new. As for doing more let’s do what is right and fix the actual issues not just make more government. As for the Recovery….Act that has not helped at all. Most of this happens years down the road and interestingly enough at election times.

Also stop with this inherited stuff. I’m in no way stating that the previous administration was great but you promised to move forward and you are not!

As for getting this done this year I want it right not fast. You are doing yourself and America a disservice by rushing this bill and not assuring we are fixing the actual root problems.

I firmly agree that we need to support our veterans. We have a personal stake in this. Having military family with PTSD we have seen no change in these military members being allowed care. This is truly something your administration is failing at and you need to work on it before trying to tell us you fixed this issue. By the way killing them off with toxic drug combinations and pulling the doctors that are actually helping them is not the answer.

Looking forward I agree that tough choices do need to be made but patients need to come first not political parties. It is the American people who need to be allowed to come together to make healthcare correct.

Trust me we know the forms and the struggles of insurance but we also know how personal accountability and engagement can mitigate that paperwork. We would also stress that often that paperwork is generated by the doctor, hospital and the government not the insurance company. There are now due to the Recovery…Act over 4 privacy laws on the books that insurance, doctors, hospitals etc. have to comply to that add extreme costs to healthcare. If you want to start helping costs get these off the books and state simply that anyone sharing patient information with someone besides the patient or the legal representative of the patient will be punished. The end no book of words to state one sentence!

Given all this my original question has not been addressed which is how can you guarantee my current quality of life. Please don’t try to tell me I have to sacrifice for others because my family has spent our life serving others but we do not accept the concept that government can dictate what and when and how we give. I am sick of the rhetoric and politics. Take the politics out and stop the one-upmanship and lets do it right.

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