Readers Respond: Healthcare reform

HCN asked readers: What do you think about the plans to attempt to repeal the recent overhaul of the healthcare system? Here is what we heard: 

"In my view the cost of health care must be addressed, but to pass a monster healthcare bill with over 2,000 pages that almost no one read before they voted to pass it was ludicrous at best and stupid at worst. All the regulations that were woven into the bill will impact every section of our economy. The last time I checked we don’t have citizens dying in the streets because they couldn’t get emergency health care so the sense of urgency was hard to understand. The politicians need to identify the problems and then come up with the solutions and fine-tune the best healthcare system in the world -- not destroy it. If they want to address the spiraling costs they need to pass tort reform to do away with defensive medicine and the frivolous lawsuits which costs hundreds of millions a year. They need to go after fraud and abuse to recover taxpayer money that shouldn’t have been paid out to begin with and make it understood fraud and corruption will no longer be tolerated, and if caught you will do jail time and forfeit any and all assets accumulated with these funds. Our country is on the verge of bankruptcy, and to pass these huge spending bills is irresponsible when someone with common sense could fix what’s wrong with the healthcare system for a minimal amount of money instead of the trillions of dollars this bill will cost the taxpayers that we can’t afford."

— Bill Bates

R.P. Johnson & Son, Inc.

Andover, N.H. 

"Any attempt to repeal health care is short-sighted, anti-people and anti-business. What we need to do is move beyond this first step and quickly move to a single payer system.  This will reduce overall costs to both individuals and businesses while extending quality health care to all. Let's stop listening only to the spin doctors and start analyzing the situation and data available."

— Bruce Millar           

“I look forward to the conservatives in Congress writing a new healthcare program this year -- one that will work the way it was intended.”

— Ted Pecot

“I am in complete support of repealing the 2010 healthcare law.”

— Phil

“Repeal!”

— Name withheld

“Healthcare reform should not be touched except to broaden its scope. I think it is a complete falsehood that people do not want healthcare reform. People did not like the reform in its watered-down form. They wanted single payer and a more overreaching program. True, they did not like the reform, but not because they did not want reform.”

— Jim Coretti