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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

12/22/09 Reader Submitted Comments: The health care debacle

Hi, friends. I have sent the following to Greenwich Rondup, my local newspapers and to Connecticut’s senators and Greenwich’s Representative. I hope that you will consider copying and pasting…and sending it on. Sitting around the table and complaining suddenly seems insufficient. If we don’t make our voices heard now we may well deserve the ice floe onto which we will be put.

Judy Crystal

As the story goes, there was a congressman of whom it was said, “he was an honest politician; when he was bought, he stayed bought.” Of the brave and honorable men and women currently serving in the Senate and House this is probably the best that can be said.

Not one of them, Republican or Democrat, has attempted to deal with the real issues of the health care debacle. There has been no discussion of the need for tort reform (kudos to the effectiveness of the American Association of Trial Lawyers). There has been no discussion of the patent unfairness of the insurance industry’s exclusion from our country’s antitrust laws (bravos to the effectiveness of the insurance lobby and its vocal advocate, Joseph Lieberman).

Not one Representative, not one Senator, and certainly not our President, has mentioned the utter hypocrisy of deciding the future of health care in America while maintaining the extraordinary (and perpetual) coverage granted not only to themselves but to their families.

The only “transparency” the majority party has allowed, is the transparent bribery being used. We no longer have to question the “price” of a member of Congress: in the South it is three hundred million dollars, in the Midwest it’s whatever Medicaid costs will be – forever, the Northeast comes out on the short end with only one hundred million for Connecticut. In the struggle for a “victory” it seems that the majority party will do anything to win. The public be damned.

It may be too late to stop the present insanity. Votes bought will probably stay bought. Arms twisted will remain that way. If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson aren’t turning over in their graves – rest assured that Harry Truman is.

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