Health care reform is all about grabbing power
To the editor:
It is important for all of us to realize that the health care legislation currently being hotly debated is not about insuring the uninsured, reducing health care costs, etc.
This legislation is all about power -- greatly expanded power for the Obama administration, for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
The federal government and the unions already effectively control the American automobile industry. The government has recently gained great power over the financial institutions of the United States.
Renewable energy regulations give the government a lot of power over utilities. If the cap-and-trade legislation passes the Senate, the government will totally control the production of energy in this country.
If the proposed health care legislation passes, the federal government will control one-sixth of the U.S. economy. President Obama's appointed czars and other unelected bureaucrats will control the health care system in the United States, maybe not in the next year, but certainly within the next five years.
Make no mistake, this health care legislation is all about power.
That is why President Obama, even in the face of stiff opposition from some of his own Democrats, refuses to give up his demand for a government-run health care system to compete with the private sector.
Walter F. Wegst
LAS VEGAS
Foreign stimulus
To the editor:
Another stimulus package: The Obama administration backs off-shore oil drilling.
The irony of this $2 billion in loans is that it goes to Petrobras, Brazil's state-owned oil company.
Even better is the prospect that more loans are to come.
Of course, it's just a coincidence that George Soros and his hedge-fund firm repositioned his millions of shares to get dividends just days before Obama's loan commitments to Petrobras.
You tell me: Do our government loans to Brazil, for off-shore drilling, stimulate our economy, improve our security, make us more oil independent or help us obtain the vast amounts of off-shore oil in Alaska and off our East and West coasts?
I have an idea: Let American oil companies do what we are paying Brazil's state-run Petrobras oil company to do: drill off our own shores.
John J. Erlanger
LAS VEGAS
