To the Editor:
Re “New Poll Finds Growing Unease on Health Plan” (front page, July 30):
We should be ashamed of ourselves for allowing the message of those who are driven by the powerful insurance lobby, and those who oppose the president’s plan for purely political reasons, to shape our opinions.
They have offered no alternatives to the president’s health care reform plan, and in fact have done nothing except muddy the waters of reasonable logic with relentless, misleading and scary commentary and whisper campaigns, often verging on outright nuttiness.
If we can’t see through that for what it is, especially after the last eight frightening years, we deserve whatever pathetic health care reform rises from the ashes.
In November, we voted for change, and we got it, and it can be said that in many ways, it is not the same old government of the last eight years. Unfortunately, it is the electorate that remains the same—susceptible to fear tactics and misleading innuendo. When will we ever learn?
Patricia A. Weller
Westminster, Md., July 30, 2009
Note from KBJ: Note the imputation of bad motives. Those who oppose socialized medicine "are driven by the powerful insurance lobby." Why would only one side of this debate be badly motivated? Let's impute a bad motive to the letter writer: She envies the wealthy and wants to punish them by making them pay for other people's health care. As for other alternatives, there are many, including doing nothing. Doing nothing is sometimes better than doing something—unless, of course, one wants change for the sake of change. Finally, note the elitism and condescension of the letter writer. She refuses to believe that anyone with any intelligence could oppose President Obama's attempt to socialize medicine in this country. If you oppose it, or him, then, by definition, you're stupid.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 