Obama Biden USA

August 28, 2009

Senator Dianne Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Feinstein:
We are at a turning point in American history and you have the rarest of opportunities to take your place in this rich history.

Will you vigorously and openly support President Obama’s efforts for a public option in health care reform, or will you take the path of weaker, lesser human beings and cave into the lies and distortions being trumpeted hysterically from every media outlet the Republicans and Big Health and Big Pharm. can access?

Millions of Americans who are ready and financially ready to retire would do so if they had access to affordable health care.  This would open up millions of employment opportunities for unemployed and underemployed Americans.  When Americans no longer fear being bankrupted by exorbitant medical costs, they will do what  Americans secure in their jobs and secure in their ability to pay their bills have always done:  spend on necessities and other consumer goods, thereby stimulating our economic recovery in the healthiest and most effective way.

With recently strengthened consumer credit and banking regulations, no longer will working Americans fear having all they have worked for and saved for wiped out as a result of immoral, and what used to be illegal, financial manipulations.  But more needs to be done.

Affordable government sponsored universal health care for all Americans, paid for by the contributions of all working Americans, can be a reality.  You have an opportunity to assume an active leadership role in implementing legislation to this effect.

As a constituent, I urge you to speak out strongly, clearly, and quickly on what I believe is the most important issue of our lifetime.

I am one of the fortunate ones whose employer, upon my retirement, covered my health care premiums, at obscene rates, until I become officially a medicare recipient on September 1, 2009.  As you know, my Medicare is not free.  But the cost is fair and reasonable and the care is excellent.  What a shame and a pity that all Americans do not have such an opportunity.

Your vote on the Iraq war can be understood considering the magnitude of the campaign of lies and deception promulgated by the previous administration.  But  this time the lies and deception are easily exposed. I assure you that when this issue is resolved with universal single-payer health care made available to all Americans,  and the huge benefits to our country and our society as a whole begin to be realized, those who failed to champion the cause because of fear, lack of integrity, or personal financial or political gain will be forever be remembered for the spineless charlatans they proved to be.

Who will be the heroes?

There is a program on The History Channel, Medal of Honor, that chronicles the actions that many soldiers took while under intense pressure and enemy fire to earn our country’s highest military honor.  Acting unselfishly and without regard for their personal safety, they took the least desirable or personally beneficial course of action, and instead did “the right thing.”

You, too, are under hostile fire.  Lead the charge for a public health care option for all Americans now!  Regardless of the result, you will be forever proud and honored for having done “the right thing.”

Sincerely,

MJM

The phrase ‘only in America would this be possible’ is often said in gratitude by immigrants born into a class system or Americans born into poverty when they are acknowledged as leading citizens, and asked to share their story.  These iconic stories of  ’success earned, as it should be’ re-tell us that the American Dream lives & we are still ‘the land of opportunity’.  America’s founding documents declare that in our country there are no positions at birth that impede great achievements, but instead a bill of guaranteed rights to a life of equally available opportunities.  An immigrant born into a hierarchy can work hard in our country’s free-market system and earn not just money but stature and respect in the business community. He can earn his citizenship as well. Success in business is calculated impersonally, by summing assets, material value & profit margins.  Community respect & admiration are accorded for hard work, self-reliance & dedication.  A child born into poverty can learn the value of education & utilize public resources to earn not just scholastic achievement, but a position at the highest level in any field or practice imagined. She or he is accorded esteem as a living example that many great Americans share humble beginnings. Personal success rising from disadvantaged circumstances can be of purely personal value or, like the immigrant, measured by material wealth. The immigrant begins by selling oranges from a cart & becomes a billionaire, inventing a wildly popular orange beverage. The kid raised on food stamps begins with an education in organizing skills & becomes President of the United States of America. The latter forgoes fortune because the opportunities granted in this nation are priceless & the chance to serve its people is an honor. Only in America, both would say, would this be possible. Neither path to success or measure of achievement is applicable to the other endeavor. We experience a deeper national pride in the latter story of success; against all odds the scrappy individual finds opportunities he is told his country provides, he prevails with determination, confidence, ambition & courage. It is the story of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, and Oprah Winfrey and has the potential power, with no financial equal, to shift societal priorities & redefine the core values of a nation. Both kinds of success are encouraged in America because we begin with the belief we are created equal, with certain inalienable rights including the pursuit of a subjectively defined happiness. We all agree that America is uniquely blessed and characterized by these ideals. We do not all agree that all success is measured financially, and yet we all know some things should not be subject to free-market unlimited profit taking.

That said, I don’t agree that those who oppose healthcare insurance reform stand for nothing, or simply say “NO” on this issue. They are adamant in their commitment to principles that Americans hold dear. The principles the opposition stands FOR is the fundamental flaw in their argument against the reform of healthcare insurance practices. They are vociferously FOR protecting free-market capitalism, FOR supply & demand pricing, FOR drug company ‘agreements’ protecting pricing and patents* and FOR principles of capitalism in which money is exchanged for goods by agreement of both parties, without coercion or threat of physical force. What the opposition is FOR is not applicable to, or remotely related to a successful healthcare system. It’s a red-herring.

We have allowed healthcare insurers to cut coverage, reject quality over cost, cap pay-outs, dump ill human beings & fix prices for profit, so they can remain competitive with each other. Our sickness, our illnesses, & our treatments suck-up their profits.  Ipso facto, our health and well-being are costly and the item of least concern to a profit-driven health insurance business.  It was a mistake to allow the health of the nation’s citizens to be the basis for business opportunity, and a mistake to allow it to continue. Congressional opposition to reform howls about Socialism galloping over American economic principles, as if this mistaken application has squatter’s rights to the territory of healthcare insurance; the health of citizens be damned.

Private and public grade schools, universities, churches, the US Military and firefighters are not listed on the stock market because their success is not measured financially, for good reason. Those who oppose reform know this, and either know this is the flaw in their argument or are hereby notified. Healthcare insurance reform is necessary to correct an oversight.  We let for-profit practices substitute for quality health care and did not foresee the need to project the unintended consequences of these misapplied practices & their inappropriate measures of success.

Of this we can be certain: no insurer will be denied treatment or die because their pay-out is capped, due to insurance reform. This is a pre-existing condition that is draining our economy, and we must treat it as it should be treated, for the health of our nation.  A malignant cancer does not check your stock portfolio, your place in history or your financial assets before it proliferates in your body. Senator Kennedy knew this. He received the care of the world’s finest doctors, his suffering was eased & he benefited from experimental treatments that defied his initial prognosis for survival. We are all thankful for this, but Senator Kennedy publicly lamented that he received the finest treatment because he was born Edward Moore Kennedy, of wealth and fame, & had excellent government subsidized healthcare coverage.  He said it as often as he could over 14 months:  everyone should be treated with the quality care that he was treated.  Everyone is created equal.  Our founders wrote it as creed, and the Kennedy family worked for, stood for and lived for that principle.  An oft-used pronouncement by many who oppose reform rings very true here, to we who support reform: every life is precious.

*note: the patent is a government protection and antithetical to free-market capitalism