Letters: Ted Kennedy And Healthcare

July 27, 2009 'We're almost there'

NEWSWEEK

Published Jul 25, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Aug 3, 2009

Email To A Friend

Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.

SPONSORED BY

What a great failure if we don't pass a health-care bill while Senator Kennedy is alive. How can we fight wars and send arms overseas and not care for our sick and poor?
K. Thomas Bose, M.D., Carlsbad, Calif.

Whatever one's thoughts about Sen. Ted Kennedy—good or bad—you can't deny his passion and devotion to achieving a universal-health-care plan. He has continued to fight while others have thrown up their hands and given up. Should his quest be accomplished, it will be a well-deserved legacy for a courageous advocate of equality for all Americans.
Dexter P. Morgan, Daphne, Ala.

How ironic that you would choose to put Senator Kennedy on your cover touting government health care. Would the experimental treatments he is receiving (at taxpayers' expense) be available to U.S. citizens under any health-care plan now before Congress?
Louis M. Spiezio, Lewis Center, Ohio

Your timeline left out one date: July 18, 1969—Mary Jo Kopechne dies in Kennedy's car.
Allan Gillingham, Gilbert, Ariz.

The question of health care is one of human rights and morality above all else. We lag well behind other nations in both quality and access to medical care to protect the for-profit health-care industry. When the argument is made that nationalized health care would diminish our quality of care, why does no one point out that we spend more than anyone and yet rank 37th in the world? You want to boost the economy? Remove the burden of health insurance from businesses. Remove record profit margins from insurance companies. Remove the tens of millions of dollars already spent this year on lobbying by the health-care industry. The fearmongering associated with notions of "socialized medicine" needs a serious juxtaposition with reality.
Lori Bedell, State College, Pa.

'The "Tax the Rich!" Reflex'
George Will claims that Democrats want to soak the rich, that it is unfair to tax them to pay for expanding health insurance, and that the top 1.4 percent of taxpayers pay 45.2 percent of all income taxes. True enough. Will didn't mention that this 1 percent owns 50 percent of all financial wealth in the U.S., including 65 percent of all financial securities. Their wealth is 190 times greater than that of the median U.S. household. Seems the rich can easily afford to pay a few thousand dollars more per year to ensure health care for all.
Christopher Cherney, Berkeley, Calif.

Like many other commentators, George Will misses a remarkable fact. The entire rise in the consumer-spending share of GDP from 59 percent in 1959 to 70 percent today can be attributed to health spending—something consumers have little control over—and not to "conspicuous consumption." Excluding all medical costs, consumer spending is only 55 percent of GDP today. Without somehow controlling runaway health costs (and the government deficits they will inevitably cause), households as well as the -business-investment sector that Will highlights will be increasingly squeezed, and economic growth will languish.
Larry Horwitz, Kissimmee, Fla.

Correction: The photo of Ted Kennedy and Edward Jr. on the “New week” page should have been credited to Ken ReganCamera 5. NEWSWEEK regrets the error.

Member Comments

- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: Omaar @ 08/01/2009 10:05:39 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTh-Yu9RfF0&feature=player_embedded

This Guy Kicked A!!

Democrat Anthony Weiner...

He challenged all the Republicans Complaining about [Government Run Health Care] to sign an Amendment to Wipe Out Medi-Care [Forever]

The Republicans Voted [No] after Weiner called them out on their Scare Tactics of...

Socialized Medicine, Government Run Health Care, Government coming between, You and Your Doctors....Propaganda.

Essentially Fear Mongering, Knowing their Lying, all the while.

Government Run Health Care: US Federal Employees, VA Hospitals,Senate-Congress, Medi-Caid-Medi-Care, US Postal Service, Amtrak, FBI,CIA and the President Of the USA
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: anewworldman @ 07/29/2009 12:31:47 AM

The insurance companies are investing billions of dollars to tell us that government run insurance is "Bad". However, ask yourself when was the last time anybody heard on the news that a patient with Medicare died because they were denied treatment. Insurance companies do NOT care about patients. Their primary responsibility is to their share holders. Government run insurance may not be perfect, but it cn be changed through legislation. However, private insurance is "Take it or leave it". Medicare currently runs on 7% overhead. Private insurances run on between 25-40% overhead. That means that on average less than 70% of every dollar paid into "universal health insurance" will actually be used for that purpose the rest goes to executive pays and bonuses. With Medicare, everybody knows what is covered and what is not covered. There is no prior authorization and no referrals needed for treatment. However, almost every private insurance company requires prior authorization for most procedures including MRI, medications, surgeries, ect. YES even the so called PPO plans. Many private plans also require prior authorization before you can see an specialist. And they will NEVER tell you what is covered and what is not covered. You always find out the hard way when a doctor bill or hospital bill was denied. Also ask yourself, when was the last time a Medicare patient received a bill from their doctor because a particular treatment was not a "covered" benefit. Or that their contract was voided because they did not disclose that they had yeast infection 10 years ago (for which it is a ground for them to deny coverage). There is no true perfect solution, but don't allow the big insurance companies muddy the waters and your judgement on this issue. Know the facts know the consequnces. This universal health care can be the best thing to happen to us or the worse. Make sure that our leaders do what is right for us not what is right for the companies that are pumping billions of dollars into their pockets.
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: Gusto75 @ 07/27/2009 11:39:59 AM

Senator Kennedy's article, The Cause of My Life, aptly related his long career quest to enact health care legislation to the political, and medical triumphs and tragedies in his life. It was most interesting, however, that the timeline predominately placed on the article's header failed to mention the medical care he received after Chappaquiddick and the death of his friend Mary Jo Kopechne. Once again the media turns a blind eye to one whom they revere.
Steve Presley Fort Collins, Colorado