Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

To the Editor:

As a 72-year-old Medicare beneficiary, I’m outraged to read of right-wingers throwing tantrums to disrupt town hall meetings on health care reform. Nothing could be more destructive of democracy and indicative of desperation than such attempts to squelch freedom of speech and to mislead people into acting against their own best interests.

Thanks to my Medicare coverage, my excellent doctors—whom I chose—were able to pull me back from the brink of death without forcing me into bankruptcy after a three-month hospitalization.

I’m tired of the same old lies against government-sponsored health care. A single-payer government program like Medicare is the only way to control costs without rationing. We elderly should go to the barricades on this issue because we know the truth.

Alma Graham
New York, Aug. 8, 2009

Note from KBJ: If we had single-payer health care, this letter, in all likelihood, would not have been written. By the way, where was the letter writer when progressive thugs were disrupting campus speeches, throwing pies, and shouting down speakers? Is it "disruption" only when done by conservatives?