To the Editor:

Of all the manipulative statements declared in the heated health care reform debate in Washington and all over the nation, the most damaging must be the position of some of our most notable senators. They have brought confusion to the people of this nation and I imagine to the rest of the world, since most of the developed nations have no problems with this issue. Somehow they discovered that a healthy nation is a nation on the road to a healthy progress.

One thing we know for sure is the incapacity of the people in the Senate to come up with a better plan, except anything that can obscure the current health care plan. They do not present a solution or at least a new idea to make the health care plan more attractive. Instead, the idea is to reject everything now and keep finding fault until the term of this President is over.

The people of this nation are either very patient or very naïve because we have been waiting for over 25 years for a health care reform, and every once in a while one is presented on the Senate floor dressed in white like a virgin who is getting married for the first time – or in black, like this is the first time the health care plan has been killed.

What bothers me the most is that all of those self-imposed heroes and patriots that you find in Congress who represent our well being, our rights and equality, are the same people that own most of the insurance corporations. As a matter of public record, those are the same individuals that allowed insurance corporations to increase premiums 131 percent since 1999, which reflects how benevolent we have been with these corporations. I guess it’s fair to say that if those increases were never made, how else would these insurance corporation executives make the type of salary and bonuses that they get. This leads me to believe that to get rich in this nation, you either get into politics or become an insurance executive.

According to Senator Max Baucus’ health care plan, part of his proposal is that consumers would be able to shop for and compare insurance plans in a new purchasing exchange. Medicaid would be expanded, and caps would be placed on patients' yearly health care costs. The plan would be paid for with $507 billion in cuts to government health programs. I can see it now; an individual with no knowledge of health care coverage or medical necessity, dealing with a hawk from an insurance company whose only aim is to sell the most expensive medical plan so that he can get the highest bonus and commission. As a life and health care producer myself, I have experienced a sale with an agent who cancelled the policy of a widow with two youngsters for the simple reason of selling a new one so that he can get a commission. This proposal only shows another venue for insurance representatives to secure more commission, arranged in a way where it can pass inadvertently.

The National Coalition on Health Care reported that health care spending continues to rise at a rapid rate, forcing businesses to cut back on health insurance coverage and forcing many families to cut back on basic necessities such as food and electricity and, in some cases, shelter.

Experts agree that our health care system is riddled with inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management and inappropriate care, waste and fraud. These problems increase the cost of medical care associated with government health programs like Medicare and Medicaid, health insurance for employers and workers, and it ultimately affects the security of families.

If you are like me, you will be thinking ok, let’s see how we can identify the problem and let’s use every resource available to resolve this problem.

First, we know that over 54 millions people under 65 years old are without health care and between 2008 and 2010 it’s expected to increase to 66 Million due to the effects of the recession alone. Nearly seven million Americans will lose their health insurance coverage due to the new wave of unemployment. There are a group of individuals and U.S. corporations with foreign investments that are making money out of this tragedy but pass for patriots and heroes with no interest in seeing our nation out of this crisis. They have this nation under a cloud of confusion, a shadow of doubt and the uncertainty, which is the effect that al-Qaeda expected after Sept. 11, 2001.

What I have noticed after this act of terror is a divided nation with one crisis after another, without anyone to save us because we have become indolent and intolerant with no human values. We are in a world with no sense of direction, living in a society that is lacking a basic understanding of what it is to see your children face an illness with no medical insurance. Degenerate politicians claim power, fortune, glory and fame through a system that is a so-called democracy, with no intention of providing their citizens with even a dignified way to die. They promote injustice and inequality at all levels of government with policies that haven’t worked and will never work, because they were adopted and adjusted at a time when our citizens seemed to believe that the remedy was to divide our people by finding differences instead of concentrating on our similarities. Our strength as a nation is the ability to show courage in time of uncertainty, endurance in time of crisis and tolerance in time of differences. Our sovereignty depends on the unification of our people. We ought to follow the lesson that our armed forces have learned while defending our freedom, our democracy and our way of life; forces made out of an array of soldiers from every corner of the world who, like any American, swore to defend our nation with the same commitment as our forefathers before them, whom at one time agreed that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

We must prepare our people to adjust and adapt to our current time. Our survivorship will be in the hands of the very same people whom at one time or another we found it hard to deal with because of color, religion, race, ethnic or national origin – and our children will be a witness to this.

Ivan Marte

Cranston