Sticking my foot in it big time....

I don't think my trick is going to work (see below), so I'm posting this now.

(I have no idea if this will post on Aug, 20. I'm trying to fool this site into thinking it's Aug. 20th at 12 a.m. The following letter was written to Ronnie Bennett, who at her Time Goes By site today, Aug.12, wrote a long article about the proposed health care bills under consideration. There's a link down there on the right. You'll have to scroll down to Aug. 12, assuming my little trick works, and this posts on Aug. 20.

She asked that we elder bloggers post our own articles on Aug. 20, at our own blogs. From this she hopes to discern how elders really feel about ObamaCare, apart from the spectacles we have been witnessing on news broadcasts of elders rampaging at town hall meetings. I'm afraid my letter is not going to be what she hoped for, but it's how I feel about the whole debate right now.

Once again, I apologize for drifting off into political subjects. That is not the purpose of my blog.)

Dear Ronni,

I will be unable to post a letter re ObamaCare on my blog on Aug.20^th, because I will be in bottom of Haleakala caldera on Maui. I will be listening for, and hoping I can’t hear, the heartbeat of that volcano.

However, I would like to make some comments re the health care reform bills. I write “bills” because I understand there are several under consideration.

I live in a remote location and do not have access to much information regarding those bills, but I want to state that government run anything frightens me no end. Social Security and Medicare, both mandatory and government run, are a mess. When I turned 65, I had no choice but to sign up for Medicare, as my previous insurer required that Medicare be my primary insurer if I wanted supplemental care insurance.

Now it is almost impossible to find a primary care physician in my area—near Anchorage, Alaska—who will accept a Medicare patient. My long- time family physician has opted out of Medicare, and I am required to pay him directly $140 ( 75% of regular cost) for an office visit. I cannot submit this to my secondary insurer.

In addition, many specialists now refuse new Medicare patients here. As a result, many elders go to hospital emergency rooms, resulting in phenomenal charges to Medicare and secondary insurers, which serve only to further undermine Medicare.

If the government, which wants to reduce Medicare payments to providers even more, can’t currently satisfy physicians financially, how can health care reform—run by the federal government—be any better? One only needs look at Medicare to see that the government has failed. Perhaps that is one reason behind elders being so upset at those town hall meetings.

Second, what really frightens me is what I have been led to understand happens if an ObamaCare bill is passed, and that is that many federal committees then write the regulations under which health care will be managed, and the specifics of that management. All of the rumors we have been subjected to may very well be exaggerated and untrue now, but once a committee gets through with them, who knows what will happen? If that isn’t leaving the chicken coop door open for a fox, I don’t know what is.

Third, why are they rushing this? A well-considered, researched, and planned health care program cannot be put together and rammed through a partisan Congress in just a few months and be anything but a disaster.

My suggestion would be for the president to appoint a number of committees to research, examine, write, and hold public (and Internet) hearings on various aspects of health care reform. Nothing good ever comes from hasty planning, and health care reform is far too important to ram through Congress. Perhaps the party in power thinks this is necessary to cement the president’s image, but what kind of image will he have if ObamaCare is a disaster? Will those Congressional leaders share in the blame? Or will they distance themselves from him prior to their being voted out of office by an enraged public?

Cost is another thing to consider. Congress has been on a spending spree the likes of which we’ve never see before, and it appears it isn’t over. Really, where is the money going to come from to pay the astronomical costs of health care?

And last, any health care reform that does not require the mandatory participation of the president and his family, members of Congress and their families, and all federal employees will never have the trust of the public. Especially me.

Or, as George Orwell intimated, are some are more equal than others?