A Note to Congressman Kline:
It is a common theme from the folks on the right to say that Americans have the best health care in the world. I can’t dispute that we have the best healthcare in the world. But, what’s the point of having the best care in the world if a large number of people can’t or don’t take advantage of it because of the cost? What’s the point of having the best healthcare in the world if people pass on seeing one of the best doctors in the world and let what might be a simple diagnosis and simple cure turn into a major illness and maybe even an incurable disease?
What’s the point of having the “best in the world” if access is based on an ability to pay? We can have the best anything if we have the ability to pay. The problem we have is that tens of millions of Americans don’t have affordable access to basic health care, let alone access to the best.
So Congressman Kline, how do you tell the millions of Americans without health insurance, responsible Americans who work and don’t want to go into debt to the point that they bypass treatment at risk of death, that they have the best healthcare in the world? How do you explain that poor children in America are suffering from diseases of neglect, many of which we might consider third world diseases like worms that could be eradicated with basic healthcare, that they have the best healthcare in the world? How do tell the person with a serious illness, or even a “preexisting condition” who has to sacrifice their freedoms and property just to qualify for government aid to pay for health insurance, that they have the best healthcare in the world? How do you tell the mother of three boys under the age of nine who is not only fighting breast cancer, but fighting with an insurance company dictating what treatment she should have first that she has the best healthcare in the world? Why is it that adult children are buying aging parents needed medication as Christmas presants if they have the best healthcare in the world?
Anybody can have the best healthcare in the world if they can afford it. That’s why people who can afford it come to this country for treatment. It isn’t because we have the best coverage. It is because we have the best doctors and the best technology.
Congressman Kline, you cited the number of Canadians coming to American for treatment as part of your dog and pony show to dismiss the need for reform last year. Doesn’t it make sense that people who can afford it would come to American doctors? Aren’t they the best in the world? But why are thousands of Americans going to Costa Rica, Turkey and Thailand for medical treatment? It can’t be because they are the best in the world too! It is because they can’t afford the best in the world! Does that make sense to you?
Congressman Kline, what are you going to do to allow for thousands of your constituents to have access to the best healthcare in the world? What are you going to do for the majority of Americans that make a fraction of the $174,000 a year salary you make, and who don’t have access to the same “public option” health insurance you have? How do you justify scrapping everything when people die everyday because of a lack of basic healthcare?
There is no freedom, no pursuit of happiness, no American Dream, if we are forced to be slaves to health coverage, if we are indentured to a job because we are dependent on the company’s health insurance, if we are forced to work two or three jobs to pay for our child’s asthma medicine, or if we are a prisoner to a creditor’s garnishment because we borrowed more than we could afford to keep a loved one alive.
Congressman Kline what is your justification to allow a hell of a lot more Americans to be affected each year by an unnecessary death due to an uninsured preexisting condition, or an inability to pay for the world’s best healthcare, than are affected by that so-called “death tax” you support undyingly?
An inability to pay for the world’s best healthcare in the country that provides the world’s best healthcare is the “death tax” Congressman Kline. It is the ultimate tax.
It is time for you to be a leader to make this country stronger, or step aside so that Shelley Madore or Dan Powers can be the leader so many of your constituents want.
Sincerely,
Steve Quist
Farmington, Minnesota