People must be able to afford health care

Your Voice

By: Letters to the Editor | Hickory Daily Record
Published: October 06, 2009

I recently had to have gall bladder surgery due to frequent and painful attacks. Luckily, I have health insurance through my employer. However, I was absolutely shocked and appalled when I got the itemized insurance summary for the surgery cost. The gall bladder surgery was more than $25,000.

My surgery was an outpatient surgery, so I did not stay overnight. In fact, I was at the hospital for only 7 hours total. This amount does not include my surgeon's charges.

It is no wonder people without health insurance cannot afford to get medical care, let alone have a surgery for a major problem they might be having. Had I not been suffering from recurring gall bladder pain, I would never had elected to have the surgery because of the ridiculous cost of it.

Again, I am very lucky to have health insurance, but all citizens of our great country must be able to get affordable medical care and I hope that somehow the necessary changes can be made through health-care reform so that this can happen.

Kristy Wooten
Newton

Video duo should pay for lost business

It's a shame that Michael Setzer and Kristy Hammonds of the notorious YouTube video only got a little jail time.

They should be made to pay Kevin Hendren for his lost business and all the employees their lost wages.

That would be real punishment.

Debra M. Hubbard
Granite Falls

Health-care reform debate is decades old

In my freshman year at Lenoir-Rhyne I joined the debate team. The intercollegiate debate topic for the whole country that year should sound familiar. Resolved: the United States should adopt a program of national health insurance. Health care was the debate topic in 1972.

Now it's 2009, and we're still debating.

We also still have a large number of uninsured Americans and a large number of folks getting their medical treatment in emergency rooms.

Medical costs are still increasing at a rate much higher than inflation. These problems are worse now than in 1972.

The political problems with achieving reform seem worse as well. Some politicians oppose reform just to defeat Barack Obama. Others threaten to vote against reform that doesn't, in their opinion, go far enough. Others don't have the courage or skill to sell their constituents on the kind of reform that will really improve our inefficient system.

Politicians still behave like hypocrites. Republican leaders have tried to cut back or end Medicare as recently as early this year (see the Record's AP analysis).

Republicans are suddenly stoking the fears of the elderly and falsely charging that Obama will cut their benefits.

Cutting waste out of Medicare was a good idea until it was Obama's idea.

So, Obama's poll numbers are down, for now, especially with seniors. How ironic. Saving Medicare will save, well, seniors.

I'm glad our President has revived this most crucial debate after so many leaders before him dodged it. No American leader in history has come closer to getting reform than Barack Obama.

I thank him for it. Some day we all will.

Dan Green
Hickory