In light of the healthcare bill that was passed through the House of Representatives this weekend, Al decided to write our senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, about the healthcare bill the senate is working on. Here is the letter they got from Al today...*****PLEASE CONSIDER******
Healthcare. By implementing a public option you are crippling hospitals, doctors, surgeons, specialists, medical device companies, pharmaceutical companies, and ultimately the patients they all serve.
The quality of physicians will decrease because the public option will reduce their salaries so the most gifted and intelligent students will search out fields that will reward them and their families financially for their years of hard work. Today those people are surgeons, oncologists, and specialists that make up the best healthcare industry in the world. Post public option those people will search out other fields with PRIVATE companies that are more lucrative than the healthcare industry that will be enslaved to the gov't run public option.
A larger issue is the money! WHERE IS 800 BILLION DOLLARS COMING FROM? You will enslave the American people by putting them into debt that can't possibly be repaid! If I understand the argument correctly for this it is that over 10 years we will reduce the budget by 80 million dollars? I truly hope this isn't your financial analysis of this bill. You feel free to find me a company or investor that would invest 800 billion dollars for an 80 million dollar return in 10 years!! That is quite possibly the worst investment I've ever heard. If this bill is really about REDUCING THE BUDGET I believe you and I (mostly you because you're obviously more qualified) could sit down in 5 hours and find 80 million dollars in our budget that is being wasted or not used efficiently! I am confident that 80 million dollars is "wasted" in Medicare alone EACH YEAR! Fraud, overspending, and inefficiency are the common themes I see from Medicare, so If we're talking about reducing the budget lets not spend 800 Billion to do so.
Lastly, If you or any American would like to peer into the future to see how the gov't would run a healthcare plan look no further than Medicare! Medicare is a public option available to elderly people in this country. It is the most inefficient, poorly run, and least profitable healthcare plan in the country! If you were offered the opportunity to start an organization with the leadership and principals being a group of people who run a business that is going bankrupt, would you start it? That is why I don't want to start a public option with the very same people who run the Medicare program that will be bankrupt before it ever pays for my first annual check up! It is unfortunate, but I would say the gov't is far and away the least efficient and poorly run organization from an economic standpoint in the country. You and I have both heard stories and seen gov't workers who make $XX,XXX per year and their job is to sit at a computer and answer an email once a day. Or we have driven by a group of 5 road construction workers and 4 are leaning on their shovels while 1 is working. Those are mine and your tax dollars paying for that. Do we want a healthcare system run by that same organization? I do not.
I have told you only a few of the reasons I oppose the legislation being talked about in healthcare right now. Let me be a contributor and not a detractor. I am in favor of healthcare reform. It is necessary and eminent for this country and I applaud those who work so diligently to realize that goal. I am in favor of the professionals and companies that have built the greatest healthcare industry in the world sitting down, setting specific goals to benefit their patients, the American people, and coming up with a plan to remain profitable while lowering the cost of their GREAT service and making that service available to more people. I firmly believe this is possible without the poisonous intervention of the American gov't. Think about the miraculous and unthinkable things that have been accomplished by private and public companies in this century. Think of the advances in technology and medicine. It's like a fiction novel. Had we not lived it we wouldn't believe it. So let us use that same resource, that made this country the world leader it is today, and reform our healthcare system to a point that those who work in the industry are proud to do so and young scholars still dream of being doctors while more of the American people enjoy the greatest healthcare industry in the world and at a cost that allows all of us to provide for our families the way we want to.
I am almost resigned to the fact that the party lines are drawn in this debate and no words or testimonials could move you across that line, but a small part of me still believes in the great principals that our founding fathers built this nation on. I hope my voice, the voice of on American citizen, a healthcare worker, a patient several times over, and a provider of a family, will be heard by you, my representation, and that you will consider the effects of your signature and vote in this important legislation.
It's hard knowing what and what not to eat. I'm sure you could eat the entire thing if you wanted, but I'm good with just the mussels. We sauteed them in garlic and butter and got this. They are really really really CHEWY. I love seafood, but when it comes to clams I will probably just stick to chowder and
Not my most flattering picture, but who cares when you're eating GIANT Cheetos!!