Spread The Word Everyday

Column for week of August 26-September 2 2009//689 words/from Bill Roy We learned two things about health care legislation this month. One, Americans love a single-payer system; and, two, former South Dakota senator and Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle, imbued with the longtime Washingtonian’s love of money and power, is leading reactionaries against true health care reform. Seniors are showing up in droves at their congressperson’s town halls. They are frightened, sometimes about fictitious death panels, but nearly always about plans by their former friends, the Democrats, to divert dedicated Medicare money to commercial health interests. Amazingly, many seniors do not know Medicare is a federal government program--or, as former speaker Newt Gingrich succinctly put it, “a private system with government funding,’’ prototypical of the system vigorously supported by Physicians for a National Health Program. If many fellow Americans don’t identify Medicare as a government program, w...

To: wirroy@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 9:12 PM Subject: roy column 08 15 09 Column for week of August 12-19 2009//666words//from Bill Roy For decades we have watched health care costs grow, knowing at some point the cost will break us all. Today, health care in America costs twice as much as food or housing, and will soon claim one of five dollars. To control costs Democrats have come up with a plan of unproven parts which, even if passed, are unlikely slow health care spending growth a whittle. They have ignored proven cost control measures, and instead are relying on competition between a presently non-existent--and unlikely--public option and 1300 private insurance companies who presently are claiming 10-30% of every premium dollar. To solve the other key problem, 47 million uninsured growing at one million a year, they propose to subsidize private insurance premiums for those who cannot afford increasingly expensive premiums. President Barack Obama did not send propos...