To the Editor:
In regard to the recent debate on whether or not we should adopt a National Health Care System, I would like to raise the following points:
First, is this system permitted under the Constitution of the United States? The preamble says, “We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Notice the wording, “provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare” It does not say provide welfare, but promote, which means, to encourage or advance, not provide for.
Then take a look at Article One, Section 8, which states, “The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts, and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.”
Is this wording contradictory with that of the preamble? Perhaps, but I think not. It appears to me that the founding fathers were enabling the government to provide for measures, including raising taxes and making necessary expenditures, in order to promote the general welfare, including the health of its people. It seems that the Constitution does not allow for taking control over the entire health industry, or even parts of it, in incremental actions by our government for any reason.
Second, would a national health system “promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”? For 10 years my wife Sally and I have been on the Medicare system with supplemental insurance provided by Anthem at the lowest possible cost, which includes deductibles for hospital and doctor costs.
Our insurance cost over this time totals about $40,000; while our visits to hospitals and doctors cost far less. We think this system works fairly well from a personal standpoint, but works to the disadvantage of our hospitals and doctors who get paid by Medicare and Anthem a fraction of their actual costs, according to the statements we have received.
It appears that the hospitals and doctors are being squeezed, not only by insurers, but also by the federal government and the State of Maine, with their policies and practices. If they are bent on putting our small, local hospitals like Miles Hospital and St Andrews Hospital and their physicians out of business under our current system, what will the government do when it has total control?
For all those years before the age of 65, we were uninsured, by choice. Our family of seven, when we needed a dentist or a doctor or a hospital, paid the bill. We thought it a fair system. What is so bad about that system now? Just because our health system may be sick and in need of a remedy, are we willing to let the government take away our “Liberties”, our choices, our freedoms? For what, lower costs? Ha!
Third, why should the American people allow the federal government to nationalize the heath care system when it has demonstrated its total incompetence to manage fiscal responsibilities? When Edmund Muskie was a senator from Maine, I sent him a letter complaining of our deficit spending, which was in the millions.
His two page reply detailed the reasons it was necessary. The budget deficit, the annual expenditures in excess of annual income, for some time now, has been in the billions and starting this year, to be measured in the trillions. The total federal debt, which increases daily, is in the trillions.
For a half century, our representatives in government, regardless of party affiliation, have been spending money that we earn, borrowing money we don’t have, padding their own pockets and those of their friends, promoting and providing, not for” the general welfare” but for their welfare.
We keep sending back the same incompetent people to manage our affairs, as they “solemnly swear to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States, so help me God.” I rest my case.
Gearry L. Ranger, New Harbor
