The November 23, 2009 Rasmussen poll reports, "Support for Health Care Plan Falls to New Low".
Rasmussen notes that only 38% of Americans now support the proposed changes vs. 56% against -- "the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June".
And more Americans are speaking out against the plan. I especially liked these two recent letters and want to highlight them.
The first was written by Tim Peck of Ashville, NC, and published in the November 28, 2009 Ashville Citizen-Times. The second was written by William Stoddard, and sent to his two California Senators. Both are reposted here with their permission.
First Tim Peck's letter:
Health pitch a violation of basic American rightsAnd William Stoddard's letter:
The health care legislation in Congress contains mandates to obtain individual health insurance coverage. With this provision, Congress would violate my rights, rather than protect them, which is Congress's constitutional mandate.
This provision is a clear violation of my right to voluntarily associate and contract with health care professionals and insurance providers to our mutual benefit without the interference of a predatory third party.
It violates my right to economic freedom by forcing me to purchase health insurance services against my will. It violates my right to property by forcing me to pay penalties for declining to participate in a coercive program. It violates my right to liberty by forcing me to submit to incarceration for nonpayment of penalties or additional taxes.
It violates my right to self-determination. It violates my right to use my mind to make judgments regarding my own interests and actions.
In short, this legislation violates my right to peaceably live my life as I see fit. I oppose these violations. I say "no" to the coercive mandates contained in this proposal.
And it is my hope and wish that Senator Hagan will stand with me and say "no" to this rights-violating health care bill.
Tim Peck, Asheville
One of the principal stated purposes of the Democratic Party's proposed health care legislation is to better meet the health needs of those who are currently uninsured. As a self-employed man of 59 who cannot afford health insurance, I am strongly concerned with that issue, and have followed it closely over the past year and a half. I regret to say that the passage of the proposed legislation will make my situation worse, rather than better. I urge you to protect the uninsured by voting against it.I liked both letters because they show the bad consequences that will result from basic violations of the right to contract in a free market.
The reason I'm uninsured is that health care, and therefore health insurance, costs too much. But the proposed legislation would require me to purchase health insurance from the same insurance industry that is now failing to restrain the growth of health care costs, either from the uncompetitive private firms that now dominate it, or from a government-run system that is likely to charge even more. It offers subsidies for this purchase so inadequate that they would be laughable, if not for the real hardship they will inflict on people who pay them. And when the many people who still can't afford insurance remain uninsured, it fines them nearly $1,000 yearly... which will only make it harder for them to get health care. The CMS estimates that of the uninsured people who won't be eligible for Medicaid, 12 million will become insured, but 18 million will remain uninsured and suffer punishment for it.
Advocates of this punitive approach attack the irresponsibility of people who remain uninsured, and who depend on emergency rooms for health care. But under this bill, the people added to Medicaid will largely continue to do exactly that, as most doctors don't want to take patients at Medicaid rates. And the many millions of people who can't afford insurance will often have to do the same... until they are diagnosed with some serious and costly illness, when they will be able to sign up for insurance, and insurance carriers will be compelled to accept them despite their "preexisting conditions," further driving up insurance costs and premiums. And in any case, the reason many self-employed people and employees of small businesses don't have insurance is not irresponsibility, but fear of financial ruin if they have to pay for it.
If buying health insurance remained voluntary, and you came up with a system under which it cost too much, the uninsured could remain uninsured, and at least not be any worse off... and send you a message that your efforts weren't good enough. By resorting to compulsion, you are making it a violation of law to send that message. And that very fact is the strongest reason to believe that your plan will not make health care affordable, but make its costs even more ruinous.
I urge you to reconsider, and reject this proposal.
William Stoddard
Americans are speaking out to oppose ObamaCare. Will our elected officials listen?
