Dear Mr. President:
I am writing with reference to an article by the Associated Press's Phillip Elliott, titled White House Appears Ready to Drop 'Public Option'. If that is indeed the case, then I want to register my disappointment with and my opposition to this development.
I have heard you say, Mr. President, that the important thing is to achieve the goal of universal health care, not how it is achieved. I disagree. The goal is to achieve universal coverage, and to contain rising costs. Absent a public option, the only way to contain costs would be to impose strict price regulations on the health care industry. If you do that, you will have fallen into the trap set by conservatives, who want to paint you as a statist and an anti-private enterprise liberal. If you don't, there will be no cost containment worth celebrating, and we will have missed another rare opportunity to right a sinking ship and to show big business that it should not try to inflate its profits at the expense of ordinary Americans.
The absence of a public option in the reform plan may very well cost you re-election, and the country cannot afford four or eight years of a Republican president.
Please, Mr. President, reconsider.
Respectfully,
No comments:
Post a Comment