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12/27/2009
Matthews: Open letter to a Senator
I received your letter in response to my concerns about Obamacare. I have to say I am offended by your assumption of my stupidity. For example, you state the bill “will expand coverage to over 30 million Americans…” but the CBO estimates that the number of insured would increase by only HALF that number, due to all the people that would lose their coverage.
I am offended by Reid pushing a manager’s amendment, which effectively results in a new bill. You said in your letter that you’d “evaluate the bill after the amending process is complete.” How do you expect to be able to give a thorough evaluation with cloture votes coming as fast as a Dakota blizzard?
What was the reason for this sleight of hand? What IS the manager’s amendment? Do you know? Do we get to see it? After all, we were promised a transparent government!
What’s the rush? Surely you ought to take time to do due diligence. Or will the Senate pass this new bill without even reading or debating it?
It seems the Senate was planning all along to use devious methods, else why did the CBO release a document dated 12/19/09 which mentions the changes proposed in the manager’s amendment? How could CBO come up with new estimates that fast, if the deal wasn’t already assumed to be sealed?
According to this CBO document, the gross cost of this bill will be $871 billion over 10 years. The plan is to “offset” this by Medicare cuts to the tune of $438 billion. So, you think you can “borrow” from one bankrupt government institution, to pay for another!?
CBO mentions a $108 billion “savings” from “other sources”. Are we allowed to know what these are? Or perhaps there aren’t really any “other sources”? In any case, remember that a deficit reduction is NOT a savings, and you insult my intelligence by referring to it as such.
“There will be an increase if federal revenue” according to CBO. That means more taxes:
- 149 billion from excise tax on “high premium” insurance
- $43 billion from penalties on employers
- $101 billion from fees paid by manufacturers
- $87 billion from “hospital insurance tax”
- $76 billion from “other revenue provisions”
Several questions come to mind. One, what ARE the “other provisions”? Another, do you want companies in the US to stay here or are you trying to drive them away or get them to close? Why tax and penalize the job-providers?
There is also mention of $61 billion counted as revenue, due to “effects of coverage provisions..” How do you monetize an “effect”? Should I go to my bank and ask them to credit my account due to “an effect”!? Just how stupid do you believe us to be?
CBO estimated a further deficit decrease due to net income from Community Living Assistance Services and Reports. But they later admit that after “some years” they’ll have to pay out instead, so that’s certainly no deficit reduction!
Enough of this politicians’ trick of calling a “deficit reduction” a savings! Just because the hole isn’t as deep as it was, doesn’t mean that you’re not still in it!
It was interesting to note that the insurance threshold for what’s considered a “high” premium is $23,000 for a family. Who has that kind of money? That figure is more than four times what our premiums currently are. It is close to half our annual income! Is CBO admitting that hyperinflation might indeed be a problem? Are you counting on the average premium to double, or triple? Why is this threshold set so high? Congress would likely be the only ones who could afford such astronomical premiums, yet I suspect you’re not going to subject yourselves to this bill.
You stated further in your letter the supposed massive support for this bill. I’ve attended you “listening” meetings, where for every 45 seconds of input, you talk for 2 minutes or more. Often there would be 1-5 people who’d speak on health care; and often the same people would be at different venues. That is 1-5 out 50 to 100. And since you haven’t held any meetings within 60 miles of my abode since March, how can you be sure that this particular bill is supported? Agreeing to some kind of reform does not necessarily mean agreement to this bill, especially since the US is so devastatingly deep in debt. (E.g. Obama’s military spending makes Bush’s look like peanuts. When’s it going to stop?) And at those meetings, there were people who spoke against government health care. To whom do you listen?
At the very least, you in Congress ought to impose on yourselves, what you want to force on us. To do otherwise, only confirms what is apparent: the USA is officially an oligarchy.
Emily Matthews lives with her family on a 30-acre farm in the town of Schleswig in Manitowoc County and near the city of Kiel.
COMMENTS
Does anybody really believe that either of our senators really gives a rat's patoot about what the taxpayers really think?
They no longer serve the taxpayers. Their constituents are those sucking at the government teat.
Wclark (Mon Dec 28 13:15:55 2009)
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