To the editor:
Watching this health care debate is horrific because it’s déjà vu all over again – except that now the debate has sunk to levels of non-civility never seen before. This discussion has been waged since the foundation of our country. Every time someone is brave enough to suggest possible solutions to access an affordability of health care, hysteria seems to rule the day. The push back position now is costs. If that was really the problem, these same people should be in the streets to stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were started without much of a public debate and are consuming millions if not trillions.
Historically, when President Johnson oversaw the Medicare legislation in 1965, Mr. Ronald Reagan was on the air with anti-Medicare commercials. His fear-mongering message then, was exactly what it is today: “if the American people accept this, they will wake up the next day to a communist America”. Not surprisingly, later as he became a governor and a president, he held out his hand for the taxpayer-paid health care benefit for him and his family. This type of hypocrisy rules the day again with “people consuming health care while the public pays” dissing serious study of this issue.
For us living in northern Maine, this issue hits close to home as most of us were not insured as children. Some of my classmates had medical problems that became chronic because of not being able to access care. Access distance to acute care services was an issue then as it is now. If we don’t fix these problems, it becomes very expensive in the long run.
This is an area where solutions can be found if we have the will to put the best minds in the country to come up with what we need.
Frenchville
