Letters to the Editor for March 31, 2010

Perriello lauded
I want to commend Rep. Tom Perriello for supporting the health care reform package that just passed. While the package did not contain everything I hoped it would and the process of passing it left a lot to be desired, I still believe that we are all better off because of the changes it introduces.

Thanks to the new legislation, 48,000 residents of the Fifth District will be able to afford health care for the first time, and thousands more will see their coverage improve without their costs going up. People who have been excluded from coverage because of pre-existing health problems will now be able to get insurance. That reform means a lot to me, as members of my family have been stuck in that situation. The reform package promotes competition among health insurers. And the bill that Perriello introduced that will remove the antitrust exemption for health insurance companies will go a long way to help fix a broken system.

Perriello does his homework. He spent hundreds of hours listening to the thoughts and concerns of constituents from every locality in the Fifth District and then took their ideas back to Washington, and got them included in the final bill.

We’re lucky to have such a hard-working congressman representing us here in Nelson County.

NAN T. ROTHWELL
Faber

The fine print
For the past many months, the pros and cons of the now passed health care bill have been bantered back and forth. The debate is over and we must now deal with the enacted legislation.

One must compliment the president, the Democratic caucus and our own Rep. Tom Perriello for the politically adept way they brought a very unpopular bill to a successful enactment. Most of the fine print is just now being discovered. The timing of the implementation of the several parts of the legislation have been carefully timed to insure that the roses can be smelled before each of the upcoming election cycles in 2010 and 2012 and that the stench of the fertilizer comes after the elections. As a student of politics, I must tip my hat to the political shrewdness. My compliments.

However, and when such clever things are done there is always a “however,” Perriello and his Democratic colleagues, U.S. Sens. James Webb and Mark Warner, voted to remove from the Medicare Trust Fund of some $800 billion of taxpayer and Social Security beneficiary contributions to the trust fund. These contributions instead of being used to help insure the viability of Medicare and provide proper reimbursement to the doctors who provide the needed services, are now going to pay for this new entitlement program. And, because that was not enough money, they’re now raising the Medicare tax. I am sure that this new entitlement program must be more important than Medicare.

And, so that we would not be troubled before the 2012 election by additional costs associated with Medicaid, the federal government is going to pay 100 percent of the additional Medicaid expense until after the 2012 election from our federal taxes and contributions from China. Only after the election will the commonwealth have to raise state taxes to pay for the increased mandate. Aren’t Perriello and his fellow Democrats good to us?

There are some good provisions in the health care bill. It is the fine print like the above that gives me pause. How many more lines of fine print are there?

BOB DEWEY
Wintergreen