How can anyone think our health care system is not flawed when so many working families have no health care? It is an embarrassment that someone working full-time can’t afford to take their sick child to the doctor without the fear of financial ruin.

Under our current system, money which could have gone to improve our health care by increasing access to it went instead to insurance company profits. That money could have improved the quality of health care received, worked to make the system financially sustainable, ensured that the system is responsive to patients and communities, and focused on health promotion and disease prevention.

The role of insurance companies should not be to increase our premiums any time that they feel they need to put more money in their pockets. We have been there, done that, and it didn’t work out very well for us as taxpayers or consumers.

In reforming health care, we should prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition, allow Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, stop insurance companies from charging you higher premiums because of your age, and allow individuals to keep their current health insurance coverage if they are happy with it.

Now is the time to contact the U.S.Senate and the House of Representatives. If health care reform is to survive, we have to help it survive the anti-reform propaganda of the special interests and their handful of morally bankrupt politicians.

– Ron Weigelt