I must be missing something in all the noise about health care reform. How, exactly, is health care reform "the greatest threat to freedom" (according to House Republican leader John Boehner) that our government has ever faced?

Don't we already offer "public options" for health care through Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans hospitals? An option, it seems to me, is just that. If you are happy with your insurance, good for you. What about people like me, with a pre-existing condition (breast cancer, nine years ago) who lost my insurance when the company my husband worked for went out of business, and I am now considered "uninsurable?"

I would gladly pay for insurance, if I could only get it. If the government helped me get adequate health care, how would that effect the nation's freedom?

Andrea Straus

Winfield