By D. Cliff Wiseman

Middletown resident

The people won a great victory over the money when the Democrats finally passed the “Patient Protection and Affordability Act” and the Republican amendments to this act (HR 4871) without a Republican vote. Republicans are set to do the worse to kill this bill and any reasonable health care. There is a possibility that I may be taxed to pay for this bill. I value my life, life of my children and Americans’ lives more than money.

It was suspected, but a study of the health care in the liberal state of Massachusetts shows that abortion went down. That makes sense because a woman who has health care and knows both her and the baby will have health care helps much in the decision. We should understand why abortion would go down with the new health care. With our present system, there is no real way to deny that 45,000 Americans will die, many are babies. Get this straight. I am to die before my children die. We pay by far the most for our health care and the World Health Organization rates our quality of health care as No. 37 of the 191 nations that are tracked. The Canadian per capita spending for health care was U.S. $3,678 and in the U.S. it was per capita U.S. $6,714. We better have this bill and reduce our cost. Canadians have a better rate of babies that live to be infants and longer life expectancy.

If you have the money, our beloved country has the best health care in the world. More than half of the present bankruptcies in our nation are caused by cost of health care; the bill should put an end to all health care bankruptcies. Republicans would get the same treatment and be protected from bankruptcies. The independent CBO has reported the new health care would reduce the deficit by $1.3 trillion in 20 years. My question is what other piece of legislation would reduce the deficit by $1.3 trillion? There is no doubt the present system would bankrupt our country and us in 20 years so we had better support this bill. There are problems with the bill but the present system is much worse.

Republicans say they were ignored with this bill, but they have 96 Republican amendments to this bill in the companion bill HR 4872 passed the same day, again without a single Republican vote. One amendment was that president, Congress, staff and Supreme Court justices must enroll in this bill. Another amendment is that there will be no money for senators for their vote to support the bill.

Some say I will be surprised by this bill. I know the Republicans said very much the same things about Social Security and Medicare, two of the very best of our government programs. It would be nice to open your medical bill and find that it is paid, as I see Medicare paid most of my medical cost. An example of a Republican program is the so-called Medicare Advantage plan that Republicans said would lower health care cost by letting private insurers use Medicare money to cover patients. The private insurers charge Medicare for half more than Medicare for the same coverage. Medicare filed the largest fraud case against Blue Cross. Blue Cross companies paid Medicare $177 million to settle. The bill will stop the private insurers from overbilling Medicare, and Republicans hate to stop the robbing. Republicans in one day brought us the prescription drug plan for seniors that had the doughnut hole and, unless you have a huge cost of drugs, does not benefit and cost the government much money. The bill will be a fix to the drug plan.

The Republican governor of Indiana wants to kill the HIP program that is an aid to the poor because he doesn’t know the cost of the new bill.

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