LETTER: Don’t waste riches on political ads

To the Telegram:

Our Republican friends are unhappy with the Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, especially the mandate that puts a penalty on those who don’t have insurance, and refuse to buy it: They just don’t like mandates because they infringe on our personal freedoms, and that’s down right un-American. There is one mandate they seem to like. That’s the one that forces women to have a very invasive procedure called a transvaginal ultrasound performed before they can have an abortion. They can get their arms around that one, because obviously it doesn’t infringe on anyone’s (at least anyone important in their view) personal freedom.

They’re already, according to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, saying this is the largest tax increase in the history of the world, when actually it will affect only about 4 million people. I guess one way to think of this mandate or penalty or tax (the word drives Republicans insane) is to call it a fee for emergency room services for the uninsured. Without the penalty, guess who gets stuck with the bill? Yep, you and I, as taxpayers or we pay in increased insurance premiums.

As the party that’s big on people being responsible, one would think the Republicans would like that. Besides it was their hero Ronald Reagan who said no one can be turned away from emergency rooms just because they don’t have insurance. The mandate just takes care of the freeloader problem.

The ink wasn’t even dry on the Supreme Court decision, when the Republican Super PACs started pouring millions upon millions of dollars into dishonest ad campaigns to demonize the Affordable Care Act, and all this PAC money is tax-free. What a deal, corporations receive millions of dollars in contributions to their PACs, they use the money to run deceptive ads, that can influence the outcome of elections and in doing so enhance their opportunity to make even more money, and it’s all tax free.

Here’s some food for thought: What if all the money that’s being pumped into these elections — from either side, from billionaires, corporations, wherever, just what if the money could be used to do something good, something right for a change, not to make a profit. Just do something because it’s the right thing to do, like cure cancer, or pay for health coverage for all, or feed the hungry, you know things, some Middle Eastern religious guy — that would be Jesus Christ — would have asked us to do.

Nah, never mind, that sounds too much like socialism.

George Richard,

New Richmond, Wis.

Tags: opinion, letters