In the April 14 letter, “Why so weird about care for all?” the author nailed it. When lawyers are involved things will get complicated. The main problem is that it was written by lawyers instead of consulting medical and insurance experts. Congress should have spent their time studying the programs already in use in France, Germany, Great Britain and Canada.
I will have to take exception to a couple of things. “The complexity of Obama’s plan is the result of trying to compromise with the Republicans”? We can’t create facts to support our political views. The vote in both the Senate and House indicate just the reverse. The original bill came from the House floor to the Senate and had bipartisan support. This was rejected by the Senate and a new bill was created. This new bill (now known as Obamacare) passed the senate 60 to 39.
All Democrats voting for, with the addition of two Independents, and all Republicans voting against with, one abstention. The House vote was 219 for (all Democrats) and 212 against, all Republicans and 34 Democrats voting against. It would be difficult to explain “compromise with the Republicans” with a vote like that. The most notable compromise was what became known as the Louisiana Purchase — $300 million paid to only Louisiana to get Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s vote (she was about to vote against it).
Using the founding fathers’ logic, both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves so slavery must be a liberal concept. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, freed the slaves. What a thought! My real point is that partisan concepts as we think of them today did not exist in 1776. Those guys just wanted to break away from a controlling, overtaxing, invasive “foreign” government run by a king and a select few, the House of Lords.
William Lempe
Snohomish
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