Democrats to senior citizens: Drop dead

To the editor:

On the floor of the House, Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., expressed her assessment of the Obama administration's proposals on health care. As far as what's in store for seniors, they can "drop dead."

The proposals include drastic cuts in Medicare. The administration says these cuts are "savings." What are we saving when we cut Medicare reimbursements to health care providers? All this means is less care for seniors and reducing the quality of life for seniors.

The ultimate goal of this administration is to have a single-payer national health care system like those in Europe and Canada. There, government bureaucrats form commissions that determine who gets health care, what kind of health care and what costs.

Two of the cruelest considerations in this process are age and life expectancy. These systems treat seniors as people who aren't worth the cost to treat them. Because seniors are old, they should be denied costly treatments for cancer and other major maladies. They should forget about hip and knee replacements. In other words, they should just get out of the way, suffer and "drop dead."

In Canada, life expectancy is dropping because seniors "drop dead" before their time.

While seniors seem to be a costly problem for the administration, the administration doesn't seem to have a problem including in their proposals the funding to pay for abortions and health care for the 10 million to 12 million illegal immigrants.

There are hundreds of thousands of seniors in the Las Vegas Valley. There are radical academics in the Obama administration who believe these seniors aren't worthy of costly health care. There are many more thousands of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of these seniors who think otherwise.

JACK LOURO

LAS VEGAS

GOP's red herrings

To the editor:

Tuesday's letter from Loren Wilcox seemed to support the old Republican line about lawsuits being a costly part of health care. Unfortunately, this is incorrect and another red herring thrown into the health care reform fray.

In fact, the total cost of all health care litigation is well under 2 percent of the country's annual health care costs. Many of these lawsuits are brought for good reasons and do protect the public from bad medical practice.

This is just another scare technique used by the Republicans. Another they frequently use says that you "don't want the government getting between you and your doctor," when in fact your insurance company already does, usually in ways limiting your access and treatment options.

By creating in-network and out-of-network categories, they are also in effect are telling you which doctor you can choose. The insurance industry is so uncaring that they hire scores of people whose only task is to find reasons not to cover its policy holders.

In addition, Republicans are unanimously against a "public option" for health insurance. Why? They take far too much money from the insurance lobby and must support them to be re-elected. If the Republicans are against big government because it is inefficient, how can they be afraid of a public option? Is it really because they fear that big insurance will actually have to compete and not discard high-risk patients?

Quality health care is a right we should all be entitled to as Americans. I support President Obama's efforts, not the Republican efforts that would give the best health care only to the rich. However, they reach the highest point of hypocrisy when they can only oppose what is presented and do not even think enough of the average American to propose their own Republican health care plan.

When will the party that supposedly supports the rights of the unborn finally support the rights of the living with equal vigor?

Paul Carman

HENDERSON

The fine print

To the editor:

If you are over 65 and have any thoughts of keeping Medicare as a health plan, you had better find a copy of the Obama health care reform proposal. Of course, there is no way you can read the 1,400-plus pages that will dictate your health standards, but one thing is for sure: The government is pushing a suicide bill through Congress with the speed of light.

The government will have control of your bank account. See Page 58: The government will have real-time access to your finances, and a national ID health card will be issued. See Page 59, lines 21 to 24: The government will have direct access to your bank accounts for electronic transfer. See Page 85, line 7: The government will ration your health care.

Page 50, section 152, says health care will be provided to all non-United States citizens, illegal or otherwise. It's bad enough that the Carter administration added the illegals to the Social Security system, but this is another slap in the face of the American taxpayer.

Take a look at Page 425, lines 4 to 12: The government will offer "advanced care planning consultations." Page 425 says the federal government will allow anyone who is on Social Security to undergo a counseling session every five years, with the objective being that they will learn how to end their lives earlier. On lines 17 and 18, it says the government will instruct and consult regarding living wills and durable powers of attorney.

See Page 429: The government will decide what level of treatment you will have to end life.

The Obama administration and the Democratic Party are rushing this bill through, and all they can think of is how we will eliminate the people in failing health. If you care about your elderly parents, this bill will eliminate the need for nursing homes -- the will be used as hospices on the way to the funeral home.

Travis Whitley

LAS VEGAS