Over 30 years ago I took citizenship classes in order to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. Our instructor made a comment that has stayed with me all these years: He said, “The most important statement in the Constitution is a simple three word phrase: ‘We the people’.”
In the May 27 edition of the Whidbey News-Times there is a photograph of my primary care physician, Dr. Ann Dannhauer, standing on the corner of Highway 20 and Main Street in Coupeville with Dr. Goldberg. They are expressing their views on the abysmal state of health care in this country. They, among many other doctors, nurses and health care professionals, are actively working toward a single payer system of health care.
What is holding us back from adopting a system of health care that will cover every single person in this country? In a few words, the insurance industry and the drug companies are the hang-up. These powerful organizations have the clout and the money to influence how Congress votes on this issue. They have the ear of the body politic, or so it would seem. But do they? What happened to “we the people?”
While the president was still the junior senator from Illinois he stated that a single-payer system would happen when there was a Democratic president, and a Democratic House and Senate. What happened to that statement, Mr. President? Did the powerful lobbyists from the drug companies and the insurance companies influence your thinking now?
Come on, America, let “we the people” stand up and be heard. Bombard the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives with your calls. And please, naysayers, don’t use the worn out argument, “socialized medicine” as a scare tactic. Did you forget that we have “socialized” police, firefighters and schools, Medicare and Medicaid and the military? How about FEMA, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the CIA? And we have now added banks, Wall Street, insurance and auto companies.
Who do you think pays for these if not “we the people?” Isn’t it time we bailed out the ailing health care system in this country? Think about it.
Peggy Burton
Coupeville
