30 September 1993

Editor:

Before your readers make up their minds about the proposed National Health Care Plan, I hope they will take time to think about the way government has handled and is currently handling its present responsibilities. I will cite only a couple of recent examples:

One of the national TV networks did a survey of cleanliness at a number of meat processing plants. They found unbelievable levels of filth, contamination, and violations of public health laws and regulations. Our government, which is supposed to be responsible for protecting us from such violations, has no effective program for doing so. Yet, we spend billions on the Federal agencies that are supposed to do those jobs.

Across the United States the number and variety of violations of government laws and regulations designed to provide the people with safe drinking water is astounding. Millions are made sick; many die each year, all because our government cannot do the job it has mandated itself to do. Dozens of other examples come to mind.

With massive annual deficits and with a raging National Debt which has reduced us to a debtor nation and which is robbing our posterity of their political and economic rights, is this really the time to create another huge and expensive Federal bureaucracy, ostensibly to give us a world-class health care program?

I'll let your readers decide that. Before they decide, I hope they will consider all of the government programs, presumably in place, that don't work. Remember, an elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

A one-page law could provide every citizen of our country with guaranteed, uncancellable health insurance and with adequate care. Beyond passing such a law, should the Federal government be allowed to set up an enormous, expensive, intrusive bureaucracy, one which will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with all of the present failures?

You be the judge. Let your representatives in the Congress know how you feel about this vital issue. Personal health is important; so is national political and economic health. What has happened to the idea of a smaller, less expensive Federal government?

Sincerely,

Hal Mansfield, 319-B Hillcrest Drive, Durango, CO 81301-6514 (303) 259-1324