Health care reform won't bankrupt us

On Jan. 1, a letter by S. Vander Veen of Geneva garbled history and misrepresented Sen. Reid's comments regarding health care reform.

Ms. Vander Veen's attempt to portray Democrats as opponents of civil rights is misleading at best; many legislators from the South opposed civil rights and left the Democratic Party to become Republicans - including Strom Thurmond in 1964. In fact, in the years since passage of the Civil Rights Act the Republican party has moved further and further to the right as it embraced increasingly conservative viewpoints and lost more moderate voices.

As far as her assertions regarding abortion, I support President Obama's position that it should be safe, rare and legal. There is no equivalent here to slavery. Abortion is a legal medical procedure in the United States.

And finally, the health care reform bills that have passed the House and the Senate both are relatively narrow in scope. There is no public option, there is no expansion of Medicare; both have been evaluated by the Congressional Budget Office and found to be deficit neutral. They both rein in some of the worst practices of health insurers - rescission, annual and lifetime limits - and provide expansion of Medicaid eligibility.

Neither will, as asserted by Ms. Vander Vander Veen, bankrupt America morally or fiscally. Imperfect as the bills are, I hope that Congress is able to pass health care reform this month.

Peter Lopatin

Sugar Grove