Quote of the Day: "The coming debate is not just about the freedom to make one's own medical decisions. It is about life and death. If we insist on a dynamic and competitive market, health care will be better, cheaper, safer, and more secure. If we go in the direction of new government programs, mandates, and price controls, we will see higher costs, more medical errors, more uncoordinated care, and more lives lost because people with government "insurance" nevertheless couldn't find a doctor who would treat them." -- Michael F. Cannon, Director of Health-policy Studies at the Cato Institute

Subject: You'll regret it for the rest of your shortened life

Be ready, Congress plans to rush through a complete overhaul of YOUR health care this summer.

You can bet this so-called reform bill will...

* Be long, complicated, and packed with special interest favors
* Have massive consequences, both intended and unintended
* Add hundreds of billions of dollars to our already cancerous national liabilities

You can also bet that...

* More of your health care decisions will be dictated by bureaucrats, in a desperate attempt to control costs
* Almost no member of Congress will read the bill, or really understand it
* Any problems the bill creates will last for decades, and perhaps forever

Even so, many Americans want Congress to act, and it's easy to see why. Millions of people...

* Fear losing their health insurance if they lose their jobs
* Don't have health insurance through their employers and find it too expensive to buy as an individual
* Face bankruptcy if they have an expensive illness
* Find it hard to see a doctor, and are dissatisfied with the experience when they do see one

Doctors too are dissatisfied, and they're quitting in droves. The resulting overflow of patients is flooding into hospital ERs, straining them to the breaking point. These problems make people feel desperate, and eager to believe political promises. But if they do...

They'll regret it for the rest of their shortened lives.

We can know this because the proposed reforms further destroy the free market, just like earlier government policies that created the current problem. Think about it...

Health insurance is tied to employment because the politicians created tax policies that make it that way.

Health insurance is too expensive in part because state politicians impose special-interest mandates that price many people out of the market.

Health care costs too much because most of it is paid for by Medicare and Medicaid, or through tax-incentivized insurance that covers the medical equivalent of oil changes.

People find it unsatisfying to see a doctor because the politicians have created a system where your doctor works for the government, or for the insurance companies, and NOT FOR YOU.

Primary care doctors are quitting because Medicare and Medicaid pay too much for specialists, and too little for primary care.

The free market isn't the problem, it's the solution. The problem is the politicians, and the solution to them is YOU. 

We need to fight the politicians' anti-market schemes with everything we've got. Some of this will involve specific campaigns, but to give ourselves flexibility, we've also created a generic campaign that we'll use today.

Tell your Congressional employees to reduce rather than increase government involvement in health care.

Use your personal comments to tell them that government created the health care crisis by destroying the free market. Mention tax policies that tie health insurance to employment, state mandates that make health insurance too expensive, and price distortions caused by Medicare and Medicaid.

To exceed the 36,512 messages we sent last month we need to send at least 1,715 messages today.

Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army. To see how we're growing, check out the Keeping Score report below my signature.

Perry Willis
Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

KEEPING SCORE

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