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Published: Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009 / Updated: Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009 02:02 PM

Health care reform vital

After reading so many letters to the editor filled with misinformation and blatant untruths about health care reform, I could no longer sit idly by and not respond.

I am a retired, former 35-year employee of Celanese Corporation. Health care was always a primary concern for our employees and our union. We didn't start paying any weekly premiums for our health insurance until the mid or late 1980s. When I retired on Sept. 28, 2001, I was paying only around $35 per month for health inurance for my wife, my child and myelf.

When I retired in 2001 my individual health plan was supposed to cost $50 per month. My monthly premium is now $385 per month. This is almost eight times what it was when I retired in 2001. But although I feel these premium increases are unfair and unreasonable, I feel fortunate. Many of my former co-workers and, according to “AARP” magazine, many people my age and in my same situation are paying $800 or $900 per month or more and many can't even afford insurance.

Many have opined about the “evils” of the so-called government option. They try to portray the government as the enemy of the people. It's the big insurance companies, not the government, that charge you exhorbitant premiums, won't cover pre-existing conditions, allow job portability coverage and penalize you financially for not using their doctors, specialists or staying in their network.

The major government insurance provider is Medicare. Over 43 million Americans are covered under Medicare. American servicemen and servicewomen are covered under government insurance. Retired, disabled, and veterans who meet certain criteria are covered by the Veteran's Administration. Many children whose parents can't afford insurance are covered under S-chip. If Congress hadn't passed legislation to cover these people, many of them would be in dire straits.

But many of the fear mongers in Congress are trying to scare folks about the public option. They claim that if the public option is made available that people won't be able to have certain procedures, there would be long waits for care, and even that euthanasia would be promoted. These are the same people who lied us into a war that cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars, turned a four-year budget surplus into a massive eight-year budget deficit, and then, through deregulation and lack of oversight, allowed big business and Wall Street to almost destroy our economy and nearly drive us into a depression.

But the insurance companies, big pharma and the HMOs are putting on a full-court press. They know that if a public option is provided they will actually have to compete. This would put them at a distinct competitive disadvantage because their overhead and administrative costs would be 20-30 percent higher than the govenrment option. The bottom line would be that they would have to dramatically lower their exorbitant and obscene profit margins to be competitive.

Around the time Medicare was being debated and passed, former President Ronald said that if Medicare were passed that the America we know would be no longer exist. He stated that eventually the government would control every aspect of your life and our health care system would suffer. Well, it's been 44 years since Medicare passed and none of his predictions have happened.

Health care reform is the most important issue facing us today. Over 72 percent of Americans and 50 percent of Republicans favor a public option. Hopefully, fear, manipulation and outright dishonesty will be overcome. One of our greatest presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said many years ago that all we had to fear is fear itself.

I urge you to contact your representatives and support a public option. The people who want to thwart this legislation claim the debate is being rushed. Nothing could be further from the truth. President Harry Truman proposed health care reform in 1949, almost 60 years ago. We've waited long enough, the time for healthcare reform is now.

The choice is clear. Do you support big insurance, big pharma, and HMOs who stand for higher costs, no coverage for pre-existing conditions, lack of portability and more people losing insurance and/or filing for bankruptcy? Or, do you stand for insurance coverage, including a public option that would insure most of our citizens, lower costs, provide coverage for pre-existing conditions and portability and save American jobs? Whose side are you on? As an American citizen, don't you think you deserve a choice and a plan that is as good as your congressman's?