Second, insurance premiums are currently driving businesses and public
employers into the ground financially. Unless we get control of costs,
which involves covering everyone, among other changes, none of us will
have coverage soon. Employers will either drop it or go out of business.
Thirdly, even those of us with relatively good insurance "pay" under
our current system because without a public option, we are forced to
take jobs or to stay in jobs we might not otherwise want in order to
maintain coverage. So much for freedom in the land of the free.
Finally, we have "public options" in many arenas and we have not had
socialism as the critics claim. Think the Veteran's Administration
Health Service, Postal Service, and Medicare for the elderly.
Comprehensive health care reform with a public option open to all with
fees charged according to ability to pay, measures to contain cost by
insisting upon the use of proven protocols, and a financing mechanism
that taxes the employee-paid portion of premiums as income along with a
surtax on the wealthiest Americans will benefit us all.
We certainly can't afford to stay with our current inadequate, bloated, expensive system in spite of the fearmongers.
Anne Bordonaro
Waitsfield
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