Wednesday, August 19, 2009

WRITE YOUR CONGRESS CRITTERS!!!

Below is the message I emailed to my U.S. Senators and Representatives for North Carolina concerning the big health care debate. I am totally against it. There was so much more I wanted to say, but when you write them, you need to keep short and to the point. I may have failed on the "short" part.

To find your state Senators, visit this link
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

To find your state Representatives, visit this link
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml

Feel free to use it if you agree:

Please, say NO, to this health care reform that is being forced on us. Yes, we have an imperfect system. But putting in the hands of the government will make it worse. I see it like this: if the proposed health care plan ends up being ANYTHING like North Carolina's Alcoholic Beverage Commission, then we can forget about getting the best stuff there is!

My wife is a sufferer of Cystic Fibrosis and a double-lung and kidney transplant recipient. She requires many high-dollar medications, and VERY specialized treatments from some of the best and brightest our country has to offer. She has had to watch many friends in Canada and in the UK die from C.F. because they were on waiting lists just to be assessed for a transplant. Why was that? Because a government run system, in essence, puts a salary cap on doctors. Why would someone want to become a neurosurgeon after 14-16 years of post-graduate study, only to end up being rewarded as much as a general practitioner? It will create a shortage of specialists and will put people like my wife on a waiting list to see them. And the government, which is in a deficit, will determine which drugs they will provide for her. Unacceptable.

There is ONE thing I can stomach; one law I could stand behind: making insurance companies step up to the plate and look after their fellow-man and cover pre-existing conditions. Yes, that MAY raise premiums for everyone, but everyone WILL be covered.

Greed, more than anything has ruined this system. Patients and lawyers suing for millions in "damages" for "malpractice". Something has to be done about that. This cause put into effect higher insurance premiums, higher rates for malpractice insurance for the doctors.

Lastly, a government run health care system is already in place and it does just enough to keep most of its patients alive: Veterans Affairs hospitals. Walking down the halls of one you would think you were in a third-world hospital. My wife, and the many other chronic sufferers in the U.S. would not survive that.

Say NO. We do not need a deficit any bigger. We don't need a VA style medical system for our country. We don't need what is being proposed by the President. Please help stop this madness.