Responses to My Letter

I had a letter about HillaryCare published in the Seattle P-I:

The less you use it, the more you pay for others

Hillary Clinton wants to force everyone to pay for health care insurance, especially those who need it the least. The less you use it, the more you help pay for everyone else.

You have a tax on your property, on your sales, on your income, but this is worse. Those other taxes are based on things you do; this is a tax on just existing, on breathing. The government forces you to pay money for that.

Clinton and the Democrats want to tax you for being alive, tax you when you die and use that money to kill you before you're even born.

Two people responded. The first:

Money expended on health care is not wasted

Sorry to point this out, but the GOP has no ground to stand on when it comes to taxes. Simply looking at the president's spending habits and the massive debt accrued in the past six or so years, I find it laughable that people still think of the GOP as fiscally conservative. But, of course, some just have to launch a hyperbolic attack on a hypothetical presidential tax plan (Chris Nandor's Friday letter). It seems to me that if you're going to "waste" taxpayers' money, it might as well go to helping make Americans healthier.

What's the point in being safe from terrorists when you're too ill to enjoy that safety? I personally prefer my taxes helping my fellow citizens, not injuring and/or killing our troops or the Iraqi people, whose collective trauma is too much for anyone to comprehend. Why are some people completely fine with using our tax money to destroy a place they'll never visit rather than assist and support their neighbors? Please, someone explain this.

Cody Morris
Seattle

Sure, I can explain it. The federal government has no authority to make sure you are not ill, unless it is because of some sort of national emergency, like a biological attack. But it does have authority, and obligation, to protect our national security.

Beyond the constitutional error of federal involvement in health care (read the Tenth Amendment), it is, as my original letter stated, violative of my liberty to force me to pay "taxes" JUST FOR BEING ALIVE. All other taxes are based on some sort of activity: earning money, spending money, owning property. I can choose to not participate in those things, though it is hard. I cannot choose to not live. So it is therefore wrong. Saying "if you're going tp spend money on something, might as well be something I want" makes no sense if the thing you want violates my liberty and the Constitution.

The biggest problem, however, is that even if it did not force everyone to buy health insurance, and even if it did not violate the Tenth Amendment, it would STILL be very wrong, because the biggest problem with health care in this country is not that people don't have it, but that it is too expensive, and this sort of plan does nothing to reduce costs. It reduces incentives for competition, since everyone is going to buy one plan or another anyway.

There may be some modest competition for the least care (to get the people who are just buying it to fulfill the unconstitutional obligation), but it won't do anything for lowering the cost of the rest of it. If anything, costs will go up, because incentives are less, since now it is being subsidized more and people no longer have the option of "no care," and the government is paying for the people who can't afford it.

Saying "this is about health or war" is nonsense. It's about an illegal plan that at best won't make things better, versus a plan that is legal and will improve health care for everyone.

I won't even address the ad hominem/red herring about the GOP except to say that yes, the GOP has spent too much money, against the will of me, and pretty much every other Republican I know. It sucks, and we are ashamed of them, but it doesn't mean that therefore anything I, or any other Republican, says about taxes is therefore invalid.

The other response wasn't much better:

What do naysayers think supports this country?

Letter-writer Chris Nandor, in his rant regarding Hillary Clinton's proposed health care plan, presents the opportunity to attempt to broaden the willfully narrow conservative perspective regarding taxes (Friday letter).

I don't know the details of Clinton's plan, so I don't know whether I would support it. But I do recognize that I live in a privileged society only because my grandparents were allowed to immigrate. I pay for that privilege through taxes and I give back to my community through charity. I have no children, but I pay taxes for others' kids to attend school. My property and car taxes support infrastructure, including roads damaged by other people's vehicles, although I bike to work. I recognize that the taxes I pay benefit society as a whole.

I hope that Nandor and like-minded anti-tax zealots will one day realize what it takes to support a country like ours and will contribute their share without whining about it.

Suzanne Tomassi
Seattle

This is basically saying "because some taxes are necessary, therefore you can't complain about any taxes." I really have no response other than "that's a stupid thing to say." I never said or implied we should have no taxes.

This letter-writer got it:

This is in reply to all the letter-writers advocating national health care, paid for by U.S. citizens. As a divorced, lower-income woman, I have no health insurance. Do I expect the government (taxpayers) of this country to pay for my health care? No. The other citizens of this country didn't put me in this situation and they shouldn't be responsible for paying for my health care.

Nor do I want my taxes going to support other people. Health care is not a guaranteed right. It's a privilege for those who can afford it. Those of us who can't afford health insurance will just have to deal with whatever comes our way. I don't know what I'll do if a medical calamity ever strikes me, but I do know that I won't expect the other taxpayers to take care of me. I also strongly object to my taxes going toward paying for health care for illegal immigrants; in most cases, because they are "underground," they wouldn't be paying taxes to help with this national health care policy, but they would reap all the benefits (as many of them already currently do).

As for Sen. Hillary Clinton wanting to require all citizens to have health insurance, she has no right to do that. She has no right to force me to buy something that I can't afford.

Some people liken that requirement to having to purchase a driver's license to operate a car. There's a big difference -- if I can't afford a driver's license, then I don't buy a car.

Robin Sims Fisher
Fife

I actually disagree with Ms. Fisher a bit (though I very much admire her for her principles): I think for those who truly cannot afford health care, we should have basic (for the sake of preserving public health) and some catastrophic care available. I don't have a problem with a true safety net: the problem is when the safety net is a. funded or controlled federally, and b. takes the place of comprehensive care.