Letters to Mr. Harry Reid and Mr. Mitch McConnell

Hi, Mr. Reid
You and I both know how important healthcare is: you are leading the initiative in the senate on this issue, and I am working toward a medical degree right now.

As I've watched the debate about this issue online today, I've been struck by the number of times the debate has come down to one of two options -- either allowing insurance companies to continue as they are, or introducing the public option.

I firmly believe that a third way is the best approach we can take.  Medicine works best when decisions are carried out on a patient-doctor scale, not when the hospital room is in effect crowded out with representatives from third-payer systems -- either from insurance companies or government agencies.  

There is no substitute for freedom, and if the two people most impacted by healthcare decisions -- the patient and the doctor -- were the ones with the freedom to make decisions for themselves, I know that positive change in the medical field would be forthcoming.

Because of this, I ask you to reconsider your support of the public option, and instead fight for policy that affirms the freedom of patients and doctors.

Yours respectfully,
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Hi, Mr. McConnell!
Thank you very much for your consistent fight against ObamaCare!  I'm currently studying to be a physician, so this issue hits close to home.  The most concerning aspect of this legislation is that it inserts itself between the patient and the physician.  I firmly believe that medicine was meant to be practiced on a person-to-person level, and that the Founders knew what they were doing when they did not include "medical care" in Congress' enumerated powers.

Thank you for standing for freedom!

God bless,
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How can a third-party payer be anything but an obstruction?  The two people in the world that care most about the outcome of a medical treatment are that patient and that physician.  Any third-party (whether the representative of an insurance company or a government agency) can only complicate treatment.  The third-payer is not experiencing the symptoms that keeps the patient up nights, and does not possess the medical expertise that gives the physician insight into the cause and effects of the patient's disease.  Is it any wonder that their first thought is not of the patient, nor of the treatment and its outcome, but of the cost?