Focus on need and reject insurance greed

Americans desperately need and want health-care reform. Our president laid out a clear path to achieving the will of ordinary Americans who live in the shadow of nonexistent or inadequate health insurance. As someone who is fortunate to have health insurance at a cost of $2,000 per month to my employer, I can see clearly that the current situation cannot and will not continue.

The problems arise from who is doing the paying because that determines the motivations driving the determination of cost. When the motivations are corporate profits, quarterly dividend payments and executive salaries, the perception of "what the market will bear" is skewed to the highest levels possible. That system is morally bankrupt and fiscally untenable.

Our government and our society must respond to the needs of the people. Reform with the freedom for individuals to choose a public option -- essentially allowing anyone to voluntarily enroll for Medicare -- is the best and most sane route. The worst route is to allow the interests of insurance company profiteers to restrict choice and turn a simple societal need into a bloated corporate welfare program. I am relying on the gravity of their public offices to bring the Max Baucuses and the Kent Conrads of our Senate to shake off the chains of the insurance company lobbyists and do what is right for America.

DAVE RAMSEY
Dormont