Wednesday, July 11, 2001

Dr. Rückl, why did you choose to come to America and practice medicine instead of practicing under a superior European system? Was it the higher salaries that doctors command in this country or the freedom to be your own boss? Please elaborate because you don't seem happy with our system.

Health care administration is overly complicated and wasteful in this country, but socializing medicine is not the answer. If you think that after the government takes over everyone will receive the same superb health care as say Bill Gates, then you are a fool.

What will happen after nationalization is that we will all get the same mediocre service as the indigent gets and it will cost twice as much. Nearly everything the government does is mediocre, inefficient, comes with strings attached, and not up to private sector standards.

As for your remarks about wealth distribution, I am one of those bad upper-income people that you would have the government pillage in the name of equality. I already pay 39.6 percent federal income tax, 6 percent state income tax, 3 percent Medicare tax, 12.4 percent social security tax (I am self-employed), $5,000 per year in property tax, $500 per year in vehicle taxes.

On top of this I pay sales taxes, gas taxes, real estate transfer taxes, etc. In short, already over half my income goes to the government in one form or another. Most of that which is taken from me, I am sure, is used to "more justly distribute wealth and health." What more do you socialists want, 70 percent?

If taxes continue to go up on the most productive members in our society, we will eventually revolt. Not with guns but with an "Atlas Shrugged"-style work stoppage, widespread tax cheating, black marketeering, or we will simple retire early. We are not stupid people; we know when we are being exploited. Don't push it. You can milk a cow for years, but you only butcher it once.

You, doctor, are a socialist, and the oath of citizenship that you took when you came here obviously meant very little to you. The U.S. Constitution that you swore to support makes no provision for socialized medicine or any other "standard social benefits package."

Why can't each person in society be responsible for his own station in life, Dr. Rückl? Should not a person's decision on whether or not he chooses to be his brother's keeper be voluntary?

Bill Gilmer

Fayetteville

wmgilmer@mindspring.com

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