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Repealing Obamacare not the right answer

One of the things that makes Obamacare work is that the rich pay a small tax. This creates a fund to insure people that have struggled to afford care. As a deliberate feature of Obamacare, this means long-term savings for the system, because preventative care is much cheaper than a trip to the ER, the only resource the poor had.

So, the Republicans have a dilemma. They want to remove the tax from Obamacare and make it work anyway.

This tests a long-held Republican strategy. Reward our rich base, and convince others that it is a good thing for us all. The rich are the deserving, the job creators. The poor — well, they are either lazy or cheating the system.

Maybe they are not wrong, but some amount of people cheat the system at all levels. We have the rich guy who hides income, the doctor who defrauds Medicare or the mother who does not count her boyfriend as part of her household in order to get free lunch for her children.

If we accept that there is a small percentage of cheaters at all levels, maybe we just do what is best for the country, what makes us a caring community.

Four hundred people could keep paying a tax so that 22 million could be insured. Check out what Medicaid does — keeps elderly in nursing homes, maintains the disabled, insures half of American children, and pays for half of our births.

This important debate over our healthcare should not be rushed into law as Congress and our President seem determined to do.

There needs to be some choice by all of us which America we want to be- suspicious of each other or willing to make small sacrifices to help our fellow man.

Carolyn Medland

Hubbard Lake

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