Dear Editor:
Scott Siegel is the same writer who said in one of his letters that we should get rid of minimum wage so minorities and teenagers could get jobs, thereby equating minorities with children. Try paying for health insurance on double the minimum wage. Even with insurance, many of us are one illness or injury away from poverty.
Suddenly the Republicans own the Constitution. That’s why they want Big Government off the backs of everyone except gay people and those who can barely afford to eat, let alone buy contraceptives, which he somehow equates with Viagra.
The individual mandate was originally conceived by the Heritage Foundation, a right wing “think tank,” as an alternative to a business mandate. At the time it was endorsed by Newt Gingrich, and later implemented in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney.
The public option, a watered down version of a single payer system, was torpedoed by Republicans and insurance puppet Joe Lieberman, because no one would buy private insurance if they could get something like Medicare.
The reason this issue is so complicated is because it tries to tiptoe around the insurance elephant, which would die if people had an alternative. I would vastly prefer to pay taxes than be constantly screwed by my insurance company with its $5,000 deductible, exponentially rising rates, hassles getting reimbursed etc.
The constitution was written by rich white men, some of whom owned slaves. Everybody talks about the original intent of the forefathers, but what about the foremothers? They weren’t allowed to vote. The Constitution should be seen as a living document rather than the fossil the Republicans are turning it into.
Greg Ribot