Write your Congressmen.

Today I mailed this to my US representative (Paul Hodes a democrat) and my democratic senator (Jean Shaheen). The word I have is that real letters sent snail mail are more influential than email.

Dear Representative/Senator,

Please vote against the “Health Care Bill”. It costs too much. The United States already spends too much money, 18% of Gross National Product, on health care, twice what any other industrial nation spends. This is an outrageous amount of money. Measures of health such as life expectancy and infant mortality are just as good in other countries that only spend one half what we spend. In short the United States spends twice as much money on health care but gets nothing in return.
Why is US health care so expensive? Simple. It’s free. Many, perhaps most, citizens have health insurance provided free to them by their employers. What ever the doctor recommends, the patients do, because it’s all paid for. No matter how outrageous the bill, few complain, because it’s all paid for. Expensive tests, imaging, x rays, CAT scans, MRI scans, ultrasounds, are freely proscribed, are billed, and insurance pays for it.
The “Health Care” bill pending in Congress, and favored by the Administration merely extends free health care to the un insured. Offering health insurance to the 40-50 million uninsured will merely jack up the amount of money poured into health care. We cannot afford the 18% we already pay, and we surely cannot afford any more.
If new “health care” laws are needed (doubtful) they should reduce the cost of health care by encouraging incentive systems like Safeway’s, reining in the malpractice scandal, and bearing down on drug company prices.