Health care reform # 5

I just sent this off to the White House.

Office of the President:

I know it doesn’t work like this, but I just wrote a draft of a statement I’d like to see the President make. Please give this approach some consideration.

Statement begins:

I don’t like to tell you this, but the fact is; I can’t get a good health-care bill through the congress right now. The insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies are pushing millions and millions of dollars into lobbying your senators and representatives. The people’s voice is not being heard in Washington. There are also those who legitimately disagree over the place of government. They don’t want a government which solves problems and serves the people.

I could work with congress and entrenched interests and have a measure passed and signed this year. But that measure would have so many compromises that it wouldn’t really solve the problem. I want to work with the Republicans in the House and Senate, but I’m disappointed to say that I can’t find enough Republicans who share my beliefs and there are too many who for political purposes are willing to sacrifice the public good because they want to bring me down.

I know from the people I talk to, and from reading the stories that are sent to me, and from studying the polls, that Americans want a health care system which provides for all Americans. I know that they want a system which controls the skyrocketing cost of our health-care system. They want a system that doesn’t fail them when they need it most. They want a system where illness does not bring financially secure families into bankruptcy. We want a healthcare system that we can be proud of – one where American rates of infant mortality and lifespan are as good as those of the rest of the industrialized world.

Here is the plan I put forward today. In a year and a half, we have midterm elections for the House and the Senate. There will be 35 seats up for grabs in the senate and the people will vote for all 435 seats in the house. I will campaign for some of those candidates.

By the end of 2009, I will announce and publish a clear and simple proposal for universal health care. It will be a smart plan. It will not be a confusing - conflicting - costly plan put together by the competing interests of corporations. It will be based on the best of American health care and the best of other countries around the world which have had universal health care for 30 – 40 – 50 years. If the people who support my plan are elected into office, then in two years we will pass real health care reform. This will be a national referendum on health care.

No plan will make everyone happy. Entrenched interests will oppose it. I know the fact that it will not be good for every industry. But it will be good for America. It will give America what it wants, what it deserves, what it needs.

End of statement.

I truly believe that this is what the President should do at this time. A single-payer plan or its equivalent is the only way to solve this problem.


Sincerely, John Schreiber

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As I said above, I know it doesn't really work like this, but maybe it could. At very least, it helped me think through my feelings.