I found out about this from one of my "field corre- spon- dents" a day or so ago, and I only wish I had published it sooner (re: another atrocious mailer from
Mike Fitzpatrick - actually, it was from Mikey's mother, if you can believe that).
I am in receipt of your 2 page letter addressed to "Dear fellow Senior". I resent labels and wonder how you would know my age. My name is (I'm withholding it here), which is how I wish to be addressed, thank you very much.
Clearly you are very proud of your son as you should be but frankly his editorial response to the Courier Times endorsement was embarrassingly whiney. "Vote for me because I was an Eagle Scout", yada, yada. Now he has called on Mom to come to his rescue.
I am sure Mrs. Murphy is equally proud of her son as she should be but her son is standing on his own two feet which I guess is the discipline of military training. He is not whining and his mom is not sending out letters on his behalf.
Your son is blessed to be able to say he has lived in, and will die in, and be buried in Bucks County. There are nearly three thousand Americans who would have liked to die of old age in their home town but they died in a war for the establishment of a political ideology. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or the terrorist attacks on America.. Saudia Arabia has done more to support terrorism than Saddam Hussein. The intent to depose Saddam was established in 1995 by the neo consesrvatives who feared the expansion of Iran and Syria. They were calling for his removal in a letter they wrote to President Clinton in January 1998. They wanted to establish a strong American friendly leader in Iraq to protect American allies and the worlds oil. They said so in their papers which can be read on their websites and in particular the website of The Project for the New American Century www.newamericancentury.org Of course we know that to depose a soveriegn head of a sovereign state for an ideological reason is illegal, so the wmd fear was perpetrated to make the invasion legal. Your son may not have been in Congress to vote for the war but he supports the big lie behind it and he supports the president who has no way out of the quagmire. Those with military experience who have good ideas are being slimed by supporters of your son and his party.
Let me remind you Mrs Fitzpatrick, the wars in Korea and Viet Nam were fought over a political ideology called the "Domino Theory". The US ended both wars with a cease fire in Korea and the abandonment of Viet Nam. Today, on ground that absorbed the blood of Americans, where 58,000 Americans died, commerce and industry flourishes, including tourism. Major American businsesses and industries are heavily invested in Viet Nam. The aviation industry is growing and education is being supported by the Microsoft Corporation with gifts of laptops to the schools. I suspect we will one day see Viet Nam airlines filing the void as American airlines go bankrupt. We still have troops in Korea...and if history repeats itself as it usually does, we will have troops in Iraq for the rest of time.
The Bush team broke it and it is time to let someone else try to fix it.
I should think as a mother and grandmother like me, you would appreciate Murphys plan to withdraw in a timely manner, so the Iraqi's can stand up and take over. Your son is blessed that he does not have to fight in this war, but if it is not ended soon your grandsons might have to. I have family that served in Iraq, and a grandson in the Army who just graduated boot camp. The military is wearing out, and despite the enlistment age being elevated to 42, the recruiting stations are empty. Will you and your son still support the war if the draft is resumed and your grandsons are taken? Will your son vote yes to resume the draft?
You said your son is committed to protecting social security. That will not happen with privatizaton which he supports. Let me remind you that The Social Security Act was created to end poverty among those whose work had ended. It ended the evicitons of old people to the streets and the need for poor houses. Since your son promotes his Catholic faith let me remind him that the social security act has a moral component to it. Those who worked would provide for those who could not work ...and put an end to evictions and hunger. In due time, those who provided would be provided for. Every worker eventually would get his due. It was to keep a roof over ones head and to buy food. Social Security was never intended to be a means to acquire wealth with the abiltiy to pass it to heirs. If you are in a higher income bracket there are lots of ways to accumulate savings and benefit from pensions and IRA's and 401k's in addition to funding social security for those whose income does not allow for private investment. Social Security is income for the life of the worker and now for surviving dependants, not all investments or private retirement plans accomplish this. I had 3 aunts who worked all their lives and retired at 62 with wonderful pensions and savings. They all lived into the late 90's. The pensons ran dry and the savings was used up. The social security was the one benefit that carried them to their last day. There are real solutions for social security which include eliminating the cap on wages that are taxed.
Oh by the way Mrs Fitzpatrick, your Eagle Scout told a fib when he said at the Kings debate that Carter gave social security to immigrants. And he criticized Clinton for increasing the tax on social security income but failed to criticize the republicans who voted en masse not to repeal that increase. Oh, that tax was imposed by the Reagan administration...another ommission.
Your son also takes credit for the drug program for senior citizens. The program that is so confusing seniors signed on not knowing what they were getting.. They signed because they were told it is now or never. The plan has a huge loophole called a donut. Nothing sweet about this....in fact is was deception at it's worse. The plan was written by the pharmaceutal manufacturers and it prohibited Medicare from negotiating discounts. Is it any coincindence that the pharma companies gave the republicans 71 percent of it's political contributions? Your son's campaign benefited.
Your son also takes credit for an expanded reverse mortgage program. How sad in America that the American Dream of homeownership is fast fading. Seniors who spent a lifetime working and paying the mortgage often took pride in a mortgage free home. What is wrong with the economy that they cannot survive on retirement income without draining the only asset they may have to pass on. It is the asset of the middle class. Those who lose this asset by spending it to live have no need to worry about estate taxes...the so called "death tax" that republicans like to scare people with. There is something criminal when this asset has to be used to pay taxes...especially property taxes...something the politician impose on us. If it is not paid the government takes your house from you. This is government at its worse. During you son's tenure as County Commissioner my county taxes increased and I can't recall him ever taking the lead and proposing any viable solutions other than to change the way homes are assessed. All that did was postpone the inevitable mass reassessment.
Lastly, Mrs Fitzpatrick, your son supports caps on medical malpractice lawsuits for pain and suffering. While I realize pain and suffering has no metric it is the only leverage consumers of medical care have against bad doctors and bad medicine. The medical professiion is loathe to police itself. In 1999 there were 98 thousand preventable deaths in the country. That is a lot of pain and suffering and yet the suits brought were minimal. I sympathize with the outrageous malpractice insurance premiums doctors pay, but they are buying the lie of the insurance industry and the insurance industry has also made big contributions to the republicans to support caps. The insurance industry was not putting away enough money in reserves for future suits, and lost a lot of invested money in a down market, they went to the pockets of the consumers as they always do to make up the losses. The insurance industry is a 400 billion dollar industry and Warren Buffet added it to his holding company saying he loves insurance. Of course. insurance is a very profitable investment. Medical insurance should be returned to the non profit formula that worked so well before the industry produced HMO's. If you recall, before HMO's and PPO's and managed care with it's network nonsense, everyone had medical insurance and it was very affordable as was malpractice insurance.
The doctors are being penalized with shrinking reimbursements. Doctors have to practice quantity medicine, which shortchanges quality. If you are waiting weeks to get an appointment and hours in the waiting room it is because of the volume of patients the doctor has to attend in order to make a living and to pay for the office and staff and his insurance. The sad story related by your son of the patient having to go to Philadelphia for brain surgery may be true but how many brain surgeries are done every day or week? Are there enough to sustain a neurosurgeon in the county? The insurance companies gave us managed care at the demand of congress years ago. I call it mangled care. The insurance companies control the care we get and how much the doctor will get paid and we are all hostages. Congress must investigate and audit the insurance industry to make it prove it's claims as it pertains to payouts for lawsuits but it will not. Congress and your son just voted to cut Medicare payments to doctors again for year 2007.
The number of payouts for malpractice is down, as reported by the governments own data recording. The number of suits in Philadelphia is nearly half as reported by the Pew Foundation. The Weiss Corporation, a business rating company that rates thousands of businesses presented a white paper on the insurance industry and malpractice payouts were not cited as the cause of the rise in premiums. It took to task the industry and offered solutions and at great expense to me I had the report copied and mailed it to your son with a very articulate impassioned letter asking him to read the report with an open mind and not jump on the bandwagon supporting caps. I asked him to respond to me with his thoughts on the report.
Your son the Eagle Scout never replied to me. Not a letter, not an e mail response. It was a large package of information which included the report from the federal governments data reporting agency that records all the payouts for malpractice since l991.
Your son has flooded my mailbox with junk mailings at taxpayers expense. Your son the Eagle Scout ignored a very serious attempt by a constituent to engage in a fair discussion about medical malpractice. What I want is safer medicine, for all americans to have afforable medical insurance, fairer reimbursement for our doctors, freedom for them to practice real medicine and for the doctors and patient to have contol of medical care and not the insurance company. Your son does not represent me. Your son does not represent those grieving famlies who buried 98,000 medical mistakes in 1999. My husband was one of them.
I will not be voting for your son.
Thank you for this contribution, and know that you're in my thoughts and prayers.
No comments:
Post a Comment