The New York Times loves to publish editorials and letters from readers that whitewash the methods of legislators. In an attempt to make one last push for a diluted public option, one recent editorial claimed that government health insurance would "compete" with insurance companies and "serve as a brake on unwarranted premium increases." According to the Times, shackling private industry with further controls and offering a public option "could help slow the relentless increases in the cost of health insurance."¹

Follow-up letters swooned with more suggestions: "Health reform legislation could require that all companies that want to offer health insurance policies provide a basic policy." And, "The policy would have to meet standards set by the federal government, and insurance companies would have to provide the plan at no profit or at a fixed administrative cost."²

Come on. This is supposed to be a serious discussion about legislation in the world's foremost deliberative body, not a freshman brainstorming session where "anything goes."

In response, I sent the following letter to the editor on Thursday, December 3rd.

To the Editor:

Can we please discuss health reform without resorting to euphemisms? Repeatedly we hear ideas that would "require" insurance companies to provide certain types of plans or "mandate" that individuals purchase certain policies. That's force.

It is just as immoral to use force against producers as it is to use it against consumers, and it doesn't make it any less immoral if it is levied against an individual "for his own good." For all the talk about how a civilized nation shouldn't "deny" care to its citizens, why aren't people more outraged over being told what they may and may not do? The initiation of force via regulations, controls, and confiscatory taxation is far more barbaric.

If that's what people really want to advocate as a means to reforming healthcare, then at least come clean and name it.

JARED M. RHOADS
Boston, Massachusetts

Legislation is serious business. After all, we are talking about individual rights. Let's remember that.

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¹ "A Modest Public Plan" New York Times, November 28 2009

² "Letters: A Public Health Plan, and Alternatives" New York Times, December 1 2009

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