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Open Letter Concerning Health Care Reform

By John Lillpop

Dear Editor,

Back in February, newly- inaugurated President Barack Obama signed into law a nearly-trillion dollar "stimulus" bill which he promised would create or save 3.5 to 4 million jobs. The president urged Congress to pass the bill without delay because of the urgency involved.

According to the president, the stimulus would revive the American economy and prevent unemployment from exceeding 8 percent.

Nine months later, America's economy continues to hemorrhage jobs, and the national unemployment rate is 10.2 percent, which may actually be closer to 17 percent were the true number of out of work Americans known.

Clearly, the stimulus has failed to produce the promised results. In fact, because the bill has added to exploding federal deficits, many economists believe that the stimulus is, in and of itself, costing America jobs and hindering the prospects for economic recovery.

Unfortunately, the problem has been aggravated by the administration's jobs creation data which have proven to be inaccurate and unreliable. Those data include claims for creation of jobs in non-existent congressional districts and other irregularities which overstate the actual number of jobs added or saved.

President Obama's reaction has been to dismiss concerns about the data as of secondary importance by stating that accounting is an "inexact science" and that the focus should be on job growth, rather than details.

That argument begs the obvious question: How can one know when, and if, growth is achieved without accurate accounting data?

The president's cavalier attitude toward accounting and accountability seems to have spilled over into the current debate over health care reform.

Indeed, the numbers used by President Obama and Democrat supporters simply do not add up!

For example, Democrats would have us believe that 30-40 million uninsured people can be added to the rolls of the insured while at the same time reducing health care costs and the deficit!

While optimism is always a virtue, this type of magical thinking must not be allowed to obscure the fiduciary responsibility that the president and Congress have to the American people.

Government run programs are notorious for being poorly managed and almost always produce huge budget overruns. One need only look at this nation's bankrupt social security and Medicare entitlements to recognize this truth.

With America still in the clutches of economic disaster, we simply cannot afford another trillion-dollar miscalculation by politicians all too eager to ram socialized medicine down the throats on a skeptical public.

Health care reform as proposed by President Obama and Democrats is unworkable, illogical, unfair, imprudent, and perhaps even unconstitutional.

These proposals must be defeated for the health and well being of over 320 million Americans!

Sincerely,

John W. Lillpop
San Jose, Ca