Healthcare Reform: The Coming Train Wreck, An Open Letter To My Senators

Dear Senator Boxer/ Feinstein: 

I am strongly for healthcare reform and for a strong public option, but as I follow the Baucus Bill as it rumbles through the Senate, I feel like I am watching two trains running full speed, coming from different directions along a single track; and there is no way I can prevent the coming wreck.

In an interview on the Rachel Maddow show, former insurance industry insider Wendell Potter, perfectly described the coming wreck as I see it. He said insurance industry lobbyists would drive the Democrats to increase the subsidies for the purchase of health insurance, insuring profits for the insurance industry. (This is already in the works).

At the same time insurance industry lobbyists would drive the Republicans and conservative Democrats to kill the public option. (This too is readily evident). The resulting bill would be a massive gift to the insurance industry and squeeze the American people to pay increasing premiums.

Only the inclusion of a strong public option can prevent the coming wreck. It is obvious that the insurance industry is terrified at the idea of facing the true competition that the public option would introduce into the system.

I see the wreck coming, and I personally can do little to stop it. But you Senator X, you can raise the warning cry. You can demand a strong public option, and you can influence the conservative Democrats to join you in voting for it.

Please work for a strong public option. You will see my discussion of political events at: cafedemello.com

Sincerely,

Giles A. de Mello

[I urge you to use http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

to find and e-mail your senators and tell them to support passage of healthcare reform legislation with a strong public option and to persuade other senators to do so as well. If your Senator is a Republican this may be as useful as trying to teach a pig to sing, but maybe you can add in a threat to his or her re-election.]