To the Editor:
    I’m confused. The left rails against the “lunatic fringe” and the “far-right radicals” who are “stopping” health care reform. Nancy Pelosi calls protestors “Nazi’s” and other leftist congressmen call them “racists.” Yet according the latest Pew poll, Americans think the protestors are acting properly by a huge two-to-one margin, and three out of five sympathize with their views.
    Leftists complain about “Astroturf” protestors, while unions bus activists to Town Halls with professionally made signs to hassle elderly, populist crowds. Health care is probably the most complicated system on the planet, yet leftists are in a panicked rush to pass a bill this autumn.
    Even more perplexing is the fact that Democrats own a super-majority in the House and the Senate--and they control the White House. They have the power to pass this thing without a single conservative vote. Why don’t they just do it?
    Populists aren’t fear mongering. They’re reading the actual verbiage in these bills and asking their congressmen tough questions. Is it any wonder people get angry when legislators deliberately or unknowingly misstate what’s in these bills?
    The left is peddling something the public does not want. The administration hasn’t lost the right, but the center of the country. Less than a third of independents favor “Obamacare.”
    Eighty five percent of Americans are happy with their health care.
    Foreigners come to America to be treated, not the other way around. And every thinking person knows that a “public option” would destroy private health insurance. The President said so himself when he was running for office, citing that the public option would “over a decade or so” lead to a single payer system. In other words, a total government takeover of health care.
    Obviously, the current system isn’t perfect. Republicans have offered several plans to “tweak” health care, including allowing patients with pre-existing conditions to get insurance, allow portability of coverage, and reduce health care fraud.
    More importantly, they’ve offered tort reform solutions to eliminate frivolous lawsuits. Tort reform in Texas caused insurance rates to plummet 27 percent in five short years, and students applying to become doctors skyrocketed 57 percent.
    If Democrats would concentrate on fair-minded solutions like these, the nation would be fully behind them. If, on the other hand, they insist on gobbling up a fifth of the entire economy in a shameless power grab, they’ll be forced to subjugate not only the “Blue-Dogs” within their own party, but the will of the American people.
Dave Belton
Buckhead
Via e-mail