Tell 'em you're mad about health care

The analogy between the bailout debacle and the refusal of anyone to look at the health care situation is becoming stronger every day. When large numbers of people in the government are aware of how expensive it is and decide to ignore it or let someone else worry about it, you have a serious problem as with the junk mortgage-Wall Street giveaway situation now crammed down our throats.

With the presidential campaign now over, someone or a group of people will have to strip away the layers of lobbyist and special interest protection that have been wrapped around this industry to allow it to become the largest industry in our country. One dollar in every five we spend is on health. When there is no governmental oversight on an industry, people in it are very apt to find ways to make more money by making their own rules and keeping things just the way they are because they are doing just fine.

In 1960 the cost of health care was 5.5 percent of that year's GDP. In 2008 it has climbed to 20 percent of the current GDP. How do we account for the percentage increase from 1960 to this year? There is a real need for an outside auditor go over not what is there, but how it got there.

You have to somehow find money to pay for the 45 million people in the country who can't afford health insurance. You do it by reducing the expenses of the current program.

Some keep saying we've got to do it, but no one cites chapter and verse as to how. Tell this story to your senators and your congressman because they have to understand that you are angry about the threat of having to pay more into a program that costs $1 trillion more than it should right now.

Chuck Barr, Jr.

St. Charles