Voices: ‘Yes’ correct answer

Opinion

Discussion

September 4, 2010

By Don Adams Special to the Globe The Joplin Globe Sun Sep 05, 2010, 12:09 AM CDT

NEVADA, Mo. — Joan Umphenour (Globe, Aug. 19), who has a master’s degree, is upset because most of us Missourians apparently didn’t understand the ballot in Missouri about the health care bill because she couldn’t understand it.

She apparently thinks we voted “yes” meaning “no.” Seventy percent of us voted “yes” because we don’t want mandated health care, period. We lowly uneducated voters fully understood the ballot (i.e. Shall statutes be amended to “deny” government authority to penalize citizens for not purchasing health insurance,” yes, yes and yes) and voted accordingly.

Ms. Umphenour said we legally have to carry car insurance and homeowner’s insurance so we should be forced to carry health insurance.

Well, Ms. Umphenour, you are comparing apples and golf balls. First you don’t have to carry homeowner’s insurance. Our lending institution may require you to insure your house for its benefit but not the government. Second, you don’t have to carry car insurance; in fact you don’t have to own a car. You must be responsible for damage you do to others property while driving like an idiot; it can be liability insurance or you can post a surety bond to cover damage you may do to other’s property, but you don’t have to insure your car. Again, your lender may require you to cover the car for their sake, but the government doesn’t require coverage.

Ms. Umphenour, and even the leaders of the local hospitals think we should all be forced to carry health insurance or pay fines to the IRS. The IRS is preparing to hire 15,000-plus new auditors just to enforce this law.

The local hospitals tell us that we pay inflated fees for services rendered to cover those who are uninsured and/or unemployed and don’t pay their bills. The uninsured still won’t work and/or carry insurance so we insured and employed will have to pay for them, the difference being costly new government bureaucracy to collect the money from us to pay these people’s bills while the government hires thousands of new employees to run the new “health care agency.”

Like everything else the government runs, it will waste 33 percent of the money taken in just to pay the bills we are already paying now.

A “yes” vote was the correct answer.

Don Adams

Nevada

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Voices: ‘Yes’ correct answer

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