To The Editor:
Rep. Katko needs to vote no on any version of the GOP tax cut giveaway to billionaires and corporations when it returns to the House of Representatives.
Senate Republicans quickly rammed their tax bill through before full analysis and debate could take place.
The bill is very unpopular with the public, including 13 million people who could lose healthcare and the millions more burdened by the ripple effect of increased insurance premiums.
The tax cut is the Trump-Republican coalition continuing its attack on the working class.
The bill features permanent corporate tax cuts at a time when corporate profits are through the roof, yet increases taxes on 30% of Americans!
As a physician, I already see enough working families suffer, and hear about their struggles with health insurance loss and medication costs.
This takes a toll on my soul.
Despite the large tax cut my family will receive and doesn’t need, I feel I must speak out and work against the continued damage inflicted on working people by this President and Congress.
We can see through Trump and the GOP to their disdain for working people and their loyalty to the ultra wealthy.
Their failed attempts to cut healthcare, as well as this tax increase for millions of Americans, deserve to be condemned.
Unfortunately we have to wait until next November to continue the trend in voting them out.
Rep. Katko should keep this in mind when voting no on whatever version of the tax bill comes back to the House of Representatives.
He would do better to offer a real plan for universal healthcare and tax relief for poor and working class families.
Sunny Aslam
Jamesville, NY
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I would think as a physician, your concern for these families you see who are struggling with healthcare costs is noble. You must also recognize that this bill has not been signed by the President yet, and the struggles the families have are due to the Obamacare bill which was rammed though without debate by the occupant of the White House during the last administration. Remember that? “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?” “It will save the average family $2500.00 per year?” Obama knowingly lying about the traits of that ridiculous bill?
Socialized medicine is a failure anywhere it is attempted. It leads to lower quality healthcare, rationing, and obviously lower qualified physicians.
Thank you Rep. Katko for your proper vote.
Taxed again is just reciting irrational right-wing propaganda.
Obamacare was basically a nationalization of Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. In other words, not a progressive solution to the American healthcare crisis. No supporter of Bernie Sanders and no progressive thinks Obamacare is a good law (there are some good provisions within the law but the overall sweep of the law favors corporate interests at the expense of the population).
Socialized medicine actually does work. That’s why all the major countries in the world do it. There’s literally no society on Earth clamoring for the American health system with its rationed care (tens of millions of citizens excluded), its insurance company profits, its refusal to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical corporations, its further rationing based on ability to pay, etc.
The American healthcare system, under private corporate control, has poorer outcomes than universal programs and costs way way more due to all the $$$ that flows into the pockets of CEO’s, administrative costs, pharmaceutical and insurance company profits, advertising, etc.
A universal Single Payer program would provide every U.S. citizen with cradle to the grave healthcare with no premiums, no deductibles, no bankruptcies, none of the financial stress millions feel under the current corporate system.
Re: “If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor …” Well, gotta have a doctor first. Tens of millions of Americans don’t. Tens of millions more don’t see the doctor very often due to prohibitive costs. In short, the American healthcare system under private corporate control is a disaster (except, once again, for the wealthy).
Interesting that Taxed lambastes Obama but has not one word of criticism for private health insurance companies who profit off denying healthcare to people and private pharmaceutical corporations who gouge American patients with the highest prescription drug prices in the world. Obama wasted a year and a half passing a Republican measure … that’s why Obamacare is comparatively unpopular. After Bernie Sanders is inaugurated in 2021, after the new Congress passes Single Payer, Americans will finally join the rest of the world in guaranteeing healthcare as a right to all citizens, and this dark era of insurance company/pharmaceutical company domination of U.S. healthcare will finally be at en end.
I agree with anonymous, with one caveat, do you honestly think that the insurance and pharmaceutical companies will just roll over and accept any moves that will affect their status quo? Any hint of attack on their current position will result in a massive influx of money to Congress (both sides of the aisle), legal or not, and once again our “representatives” will bow down to the almighty dollar!
Thanks Teepee … I do actually think that popular momentum is building for Single Payer to such an extent that the usual shenanigans from insurance and pharmaceutical companies will fail.
Obamacare showed that a weak half-measure is not going to get it done … once the American people actually gain Single Payer and realize how wonderful it is, it should put that issue to rest for all time.
But like Bernie said, it’s not enough to elect a left-wing president … we need people in Congress that will send a Single Payer bill to Bernie’s desk … I do think that by 2020, there will be so much popular energy against Trump and for Bernie that it will carry over into the Congressional races and we’ll be able to get a Single Payer bill out of Congress (despite the best efforts of private corporations to prevent it).
In 2009, when the Democratic Party held the presidency, and a majority of the House & Senate, they rammed healthcare down the throats of the American people. There was such push back from non-progressives, but the left ignored any voice but their own. What are the results, now?
*The cost of health insurance has not been slowed, but accelerated
*To avoid a tax for not having coverage, millions have health plans with high deductibles and co-pays
*Many choose the fine and have no coverage at all
*There are fewer health insurance providers
The state of health care insurance is not better, it is collapsing! And as we have seen how our veterans have been treated under a government-run health program with long waits for treatment and substandard treatment… Anonymous and TeePee want to trust the government to make their health related decisions???
So it is so amusing to read all of the whining from the left on how the current Congress has handled tax reform. What goes around, comes around.
I can’t wait for the immigration reform conversation next year.
Re: Hypocrisy
Obamacare was not a progressive policy. Progressives opposed Obamacare for not going nearly far enough. Republicans opposed it because it was a Democratic policy. Hence its general unpopularity.
But unlike the recent tax bill, Obamacare was passed after more than a year of debate, discussion, hearings, etc. And it did have 60 votes in the Senate; compared to the 51 votes for the Republican gift to the rich.
Re: cost of health insurance. Costs were rising with or without Obamacare … that’s the nature of a system run by private corporations for private profit. Obamacare actually slowed the rate of increase so your point on that is false.
I choose the fine and don’t have coverage … it’s a rational choice given the cost … Medicare for All Single Payer healthcare would settle that problem for every American citizen.
Re: “trust the government to make health related decisions.”
You’d rather trust private corporations which exist to maximize profits? That’s a more rational way to run a healthcare system? American healthcare is in the crisis it’s in not because of the government but because of private corporations. This talking point about “government control of healthcare” is just a scare tactic right-wing people repeatedly make to dissuade people from embracing Single Payer. All the government would do is pay the bills and make the entire process of healthcare much more efficient while eliminating private profit motives from the equation. Healthcare would be about healthcare. It would a major victory for the American people and for that reason Republicans and their misguided supporters oppose it.
Obamacare was designed to fail, and that’s a factual admission on record by the chief architect of the plan itself. A “stepping stone strategy” designed to make single payer more attractive due to more chaos being injected within the Healthcare system. Yeah, they’ve done such a great job of running the VA over the years,..full of internal scandels, along with some vets literally dying before they can get an appointment for treatment. As for cost, we’ve heard enough over the years about the government paying for $600 hammers and toilet seats. Them being in full charge of anything is like expecting postal rates to ever come down,.. never saw that happen either, did you? And please, let us know exactly who makes “the ultimate decisions” when it comes to old people and who can get treatment and who is “just to far gone” to waste money on, okay? Who’s on that panel anyhow?
“A universal single payer program would provide every U.S. citizen cradle to the grave healthcare with NO premiums…”–Annonymous.
Well Annonymous, that’s another misleading statement from you. Wouldn’t the TAXES that would be imposed on everyone to actually PAY for everything (for everyone) be considered “a premium”, or do they just keep printing more money down at the mint to cover it? Don’t make it sound like it’s free, the money has to come from somewhere. And if you think THAT kind of money is going to come from the wealthy to take care of everyone’s healthcare expenses, then you need to up your meds.