Healthcare bill must be defeated

To the editor:
I urge you with the strongest persuasion to do all within your power to defeat this monstrosity of legislation. This proposed legislation in any of its forms is not worthy of consideration and should have been dead on arrival long ago.

1. Unwelcome interloper. We do not want the federal government as a broker for our health care. This would violate every principle of a free people having the right to make their own responsible private and personal decisions without government intervention.

2. Cost prohibitive higher taxes will be a brake on economic recovery. More borrowing by our bankrupt government is out of the question. And rationing the healthcare resources, which is inevitable, is the cruelest of all. Government projected costs are always under estimated by multiple factors.

3. Unintended consequences. Many health practitioners will quit their profession before they will submit to the degradation of answering to a bureaucrat. This same atmosphere will greatly discourage new entrants into the medical field at all levels.

4. Haste makes waste. The rush to pass a bill with the magnitude of inherent consequences with virtually no time to study, analyze and debate its merits should be reason enough to reject this foolhardiness.

5. Constitutional questions. Does anyone in Washington ever consult the Constitution? By what authority does the government force people to buy insurance and fine them if they do not choose to buy?

For these reasons and a dozen more too numerous to elaborate upon, I urge you to defeat this intrusion into our precious and fragile liberty.

Roger Bechtel
Palmhurst