U.S. citizens deserve better health care

The Gazette (Iowa)
February 13, 2012

Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements. We paid for this all the years we worked.

It started in 1935 with 99 percent of Republicans voting against it. In 1939, the Republicans tried again to kill Social Security. In 1982, President Reagan got the OK to use $33 million to fight unions out of the Medicare funds. The unions got this stopped. In 1977, 88 percent of the Republicans voted against payroll tax needed to keep Social Security solvent.

The Republicans and Democrats stole from Social Security. Republicans say they support Social Security but the record shows they do not. Now they are trying to defeat our new health care program.

We are the only industrial nation without national health care for our people. Thank you, Obama, and the Democrats for getting us health care reform.

If people are on disability and need care and qualify for it, they should have it. Life expectancy in the United States is the same as Cuba. Lower than Japan, Australia, Sweden, France, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada. They all have universal health care. They don’t have some insurance company saying no. Our health care insurance is deciding if we live or die. Canada gets its drugs for half of what we pay for ours. Pharmaceutical and insurance companies are controlling our health and cost. This has to stop.

Cliff Higgins
Cedar Rapids