Message From The President

The Society for the Education of Physicians and Patients

SEPP 2007 President’s Spring Address

“Today’s Really Inconvenient Truth”

“Medicare Collapses as Bureaucrats and Politicians

Salivate for National Healthcare”

By

Hans F. Lessmann, OD

SEPP President

REJECT UNIVERSAL COVERAGE, SUPPORT BUSH’S HEALTHCARE DEDUCTION, WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN-NOW!!! 

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            As former Vice President Al Gore’s recent documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” has drawn attention to the global warming, we are in the midst of Medicare’s collapse.  Medicare is the senior government voter appreciation healthcare plan.  Democratic presidential candidates are all touting Universal Healthcare (aka single payer, universal coverage, national healthcare).  Meanwhile Britainhas given up on their National Health Plan and allowed free market private plans to compete.  The Swiss have voted down their national health plan, while Canada’s universal plan continues to fail with increasing wait times and fleeing or dying patients.  Yet we in America, in the media, and in academia want to mimic the failed policies of universal government sponsored healthcare.  Why?

REJECT UNIVERSAL COVERAGE, SUPPORT BUSH’S HEALTHCARE DEDUCTION, WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN-NOW!!!

Join SEPP!

            Imagine walking into a county, state, or federal building for your healthcare.  Are these inspiring places?  Are the workers attentive to your needs?  Is customer or patient service foremost on their minds?  Is this a good or healthy idea (i.e. government run healthcare)?  Do you want a government doctor or nurse?  Of course not!

REJECT UNIVERSAL COVERAGE, SUPPORT BUSH’S HEALTHCARE DEDUCTION, WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN-NOW!!!  Join SEPP!

            So why are so many interested in national healthcare?  Cost Control!  The Uninsured!  Government can save us money from those greedy gouging insurance companies???  When has government ever saved us money?  Not in taxes, not in education, not in college and not in healthcare.  Never, they want more money and there is a lot of it in healthcare.  This is fools gold, the morality of cost control and the altruism of government.  The uninsured are covered by law at emergency rooms.  Should we forfeit our entire healthcare system for a small percent of people who are uninsured?  The Bush’s healthcare income tax deduction would make individual and family health insurance plans have the same tax advantages as employer sponsored plans.

REJECT UNIVERSAL COVERAGE, SUPPORT BUSH’S HEALTHCARE DEDUCTION, WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN-NOW!!!  Join SEPP!

            Yet government, media, and politicians deception and/or ignorance are even greater, for it is government intervention that has escalated costs.  Estimates project government increases costs by 250%.  So government causes the problem and then claims to be the “shining knight”to solve the very problem they created.  Chizzam!  And we the people, the media, and the politicians believe them.  Why?  We believe them because we do not want to pay for our expensive healthcare.  We want that free coke in the water fountain promised by our high school president in la-la land.  Well this is healthcare la-la land well spun by the media, government, and politicians. 

REJECT UNIVERSAL COVERAGE, SUPPORT BUSH’S HEALTHCARE DEDUCTION, WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN-NOW!!!  Join SEPP!

            We should not retreat from personally paying for our healthcare.  We are worth it! However, we should be empowered to expect value from our investment.  We can only control the value if we are the primary investor/payer.  Would we yield our ownership and control of our automobiles to government?  Would we want government produced autos like the East German “Trabant”where it was ridiculed that you could double it’s value by merely filling the gas tank.  Would we feel secure in our car if government maintained it?  Would they give it special attention before a vacation or when given to a son or daughter?  No.  No.  No.  We want our own cars and pay for it; shouldn’t we do the same with our healthcare?

Pay for your healthcare, Pay for your Family, you and they are worth it!

We should not expect or demand that our employer or government be responsible for our healthcare for they have many other priorities.  Secondly, we want and need our doctors and care givers (not providers) to be directly accountable to us and our family and not our employer and/or government.  We need our doctors to be direct and sole advocates for our care.   Government single payer healthcare divorces us from our own care.  Single payer is fools gold.  SINGLE PAYER DISENFRANCHISES PATIENTS!

REJECT UNIVERSAL COVERAGE, SUPPORT BUSH’S HEALTHCARE DEDUCTION, WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN-NOW!!!  Join SEPP!

The inconvenient truth is that government healthcare is not a solution but an expansionof the problem.  This will lead to the decimation of the healthcare system.  Reject National Healthcare and support President Bush’s Healthcare income tax deduction.  This will even the tax distortion between employer sponsored plans and privately purchased plans, empowering individuals and families to advocate themselves.  Health Savings Accountsprovide the financing vehicle to empower patients to own, control, and pay for their doctors and care while securing their advocacy and health. 

VOTE YOURSELF IN AND VOTE OUT NATIONAL HEALTHCARE,

YOU ARE WORTH IT!