Wednesday, July 11, 2001

Like many seniors, I sacrificed and worked hard for over 40 years with certain goals in mind. One of those goals was not to be a burden to my children. I saved, invested, bought health and long term care insurance and, most importantly, lived a healthy lifestyle so that I would not cause myself physical problems in the long run.

Now the Democrats tell me that I, my children, and eventually my grandchildren, will have to buy prescription drugs and health insurance for those that didn't save or sacrifice, smoked, drank to excess, did drugs and otherwise acted in a way as to make them a burden to themselves and others.

The donkeys also promise to spend $42 billion over five years to insure a million children. That works out to $42,000 per child or $700 a month. Private insurance plans would cost about $20 a month. What would Medicare do with the other $680?

Oh, and by the way, you don't have to be an American citizen to get these benefits. And guess what this is called: "Fighting for America's working families." I call it income redistribution and socialism.

It doesn't help either that between 1996 and 1998, Medicare paid out more than $56 billion in improper payments, and in one year, 1999, $13.5 billion was lost by fraud and mismangement in the Medicare system. Instead of cleaning up the system, Democrats want to expand it.

Between 1991 and 1998, the U.S. population grew 7 percent; however, during the same period, disability payments grew 47 percent. Does this mean that we granted citizenship to only disabled people, or did a lot more folks figure out how to get the taxpayer's money? It also may be of interest that AARP is pushing a four-point agenda that includes Medicare-provided drug benefits and long-term care insurance. Why does AARP want my children and grandchildren to take care of them with their taxes? Didn't they once work for a living?

Clinton-Gore know they can't sell socialized medicine to the American people, so they call it Medicare or Medicaid instead of what it is. Instead of telling us that the state should raise our children in day care-school-clinic centers as Fidel Castro does in Cuba, they say, "It takes a village to raise a child."

They insult us by calling us bigots, homophobes and extremists, and insist we cannot look beyond race, gender or sexual proclivity to see character and competence. Therefore, we must hire, promote, proclaim and worst of all prosecute crime on the basis of quotas, always avoiding any suggestion of racial profiling. (Isn't racial profiling the essence of quotas? Never mind.)

The Democrats tell us they will fight big oil, the pharmaceuticals and tobacco. What will they do, nationalize them? Will that make them better?

We will have gas at $5 a gallon, no new developments in drugs because there will be no money to put into research, and the same smokes at $10 a pack (at least most kids couldn't buy them).

We'll all live in high rises to combat sprawl, and inhale the smoke from forest fires that burn constantly in woods that are overgrown and unlogged and that we are prohibited from visiting because there are no roads and we can't afford the gas to get there anyway.

So, take the family to a movie? What, and subject them to the language and situations produced by the Democrats' biggest supporters, the Hollywood elite?

Heck, just vote for anybody but a Democrat and save us all this trouble.

William Fielder

Peachtree City

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