9/9/2009 6:00:00 AM Letter: Some covered by Medicare don't want to share the care
Port Townsend has a warm social climate, but in the Aug. 31 town hall meeting on healthcare reform with Rep. Norm Dicks, I found myself surrounded by a team of stoked-up Sequim residents wearing "I'm Tea'd" buttons on their shirts and a purpose in their eyes. Their buttons suggested that they do not feel they are being fairly represented, but the look in their eyes was more telling - this was their forum and they were going to be heard. After all, there was nothing in their way - most people without health insurance were still at work.
I couldn't help but notice how happy the "Tea'd" Sequimites surrounding me seemed to be when Rep. Norm Dicks was asked if he would be willing to drop his health plan for one of the proposed plans. While they were busy laughing at the insinuation of this question that Rep. Dicks would never drop his supposedly superior coverage, these Sequimites seemed to miss the irony when Rep. Dicks stated that he has the same coverage as they do - Medicare.
Although the majority of the Sequimites present at this meeting seemed to have finally reached that magical age when Americans are finally deemed worthy to receive "socialized" health care, those surrounding me seemed unhappy with any healthcare reform that might grant all Americans the same benefits they enjoy. And, if they felt underrepresented as members of their "Tea Party," I can only hope that some of them went home and remembered the comments of one gentleman who noted that the people who were most affected by healthcare reform were still working and contributing to Social Security, Medicare and the other social programs we have all directly or indirectly benefited from.
To anyone with healthcare reform on their mind, I would like to share a quote from the late Walter Cronkite: "Our healthcare system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system."
We must reform this unhealthy and uncaring thing we call a "healthcare system" before it fails completely. It's expensive, but no more than many other programs we seem content to fund. If we are willing to borrow money to pay for unnecessary wars that protect nothing more than cheap oil, then we should be willing to pay for the much more necessary and much more humane needs of health care for all Americans, regardless of their age.
We're all worthy of Medicare!
GARRY L. WOOD
Port Townsend
Reader Comments
Posted: Monday, September 14, 2009
Article comment by:
Patsy Caldwell
Garry - I have not seen anyone put it more succinctly than you did in that letter - thanks so much.
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