Letter to the editor:
In regard to the efforts of President Obama to institute health care reform, a recent letter to the Journal said it was “sad, really sad.” The letter was full of the type of hyperbole and twisted information that cuts off productive dialogue that is so prevalent with the current Republican congressman and senators. It is meant to scare and paralyze. Sad to say, those scare tactics have an impact. A favorite scare tactic phrase is to call reform efforts “socialism.” Not only is that totally untrue and uninformed, quite the opposite is true. The insurance industry will remain largely in charge of health care, to the dismay of many, might I add.

Millions of Americans do not find the efforts at reform sad, such as:
• People who were denied health insurance because of pre existing conditions,
• People who work hard for employers who do not provide health insurance,
• People who lost jobs because of health problems and consequently lost health insurance when they need it most,
• People who flat out can’t afford health insurance,
• People who had to declare bankruptcy because of credit card debt related to health care expenditures — the major cause of bankruptcy in the U.S.
• People who can see that the system needs to rein in fraudulent billing by phony or dishonest providers.
Reform of the health care insurance system is needed to prevent fiscal disaster of our country. Insurance and pharmaceutical companies are the ones making the huge sums of money related to health care. Administrative costs of Medicare and Medicaid are much lower than private insurers. The overheard costs for Medicare are 1 percent, as opposed to private insurer’s overheads of 30 percent. The private markets needs some competition. A public option would have provided that competition but the Republicans mislabeled it socialism to scare Americans. Rather than working together, the Republican Party only wants to see President Obama fail, in spite of the continued suffering of many Americans.
In the 8 years under President George W. Bush, the Republicans never showed any interest in health care reform. One could imagine that they still don’t have a true interest.  
Helene J. Kelly, RN
Vice Chair of the King George Democratic Committee