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Fri Apr 6 02:22:56 BST 2007

In a message dated 4/5/2007 7:24:30 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
CLAUDIAK1 at aol.com writes:

How  about those who have worked all  their lives looking forward to  
retirement with benefits such as medical  insurance only to find that  when 
companies go belly up the retirees lose big  time and with small  pensions 
cannot 
afford medical care, and are able only to  barely pay  basic living expenses 
and if 
their pension program is taken over by   government and reductions are 
adjusted 
they also have to adjust to  staying  alive.
The costs of medical care have  soared  over the last few years do to many 
factors when is  enough,  enough

I would totally concur with all of your observations.   Hardly  anyone in the 
world who had created a business, made an investment, built a  house, bought 
a car , etc, has been disappointed when the value  deteriorated.   Bad and 
good investments happen.    Companies, medical schools, practices, partnerships, 
marriages, all run into  difficulties and fall apart.   Everyone on this list 
has made  adjustments when parents, spouses, and children die or have 
debilitating  conditions prematurely.    My own insurance does not cover what  it did 
10 years ago for 1/2 the money.   My own insurance, for the  money, covers 
less than is expected to be provided (for free) under some of the  presidential 
candidates proposals for federal, state, and local health  plans.  I am as 
disappointed as are you in the decreased value of my  property, my 12 year old 
car, my books, and other investments.   I was  very disappointed right after 9/11 
and the fall of Enron that myself and many of  my friends and fellow 
Houstonians lost the value of their trusts in  investments.   Many people were badly 
hurt then as many were hurt in  the late 1920s with the stock market crash.    
We ALL agree with  your observations and the pain that such bankruptcy causes. 
    TERRIBLE.  

However, it is not governments responsibility to MAKE WHOLE a bad  
investment, a bad judgement, a broken down car, a TV set on the blink, a roof  that now 
leaks, a house on the beach which is not beyond the water line, or a  
destroyed uninsured house that was in the way of a hurricane.  IT IS SIMPLY  NOT THE 
BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT to create a welfare state by reimbursing all  losses, 
including loss of investments to be used after retirement to pay for  health 
care and nursing home care.    

Neither is the RESPONSIBILITY of a local government to find a job  to 
everyone who lost a job for whatever reason OR as was the case in  some persons 
following Katrina, to pay them a monthly wage because they did not  have a job, but 
were able to do a job, but had never held a job.  So the  reconstructionists 
used labor from Mexico to clear the debris from the streets  of New Orleans 
while able bodied persons received FEMA checks for doing  NOTHING.    Something 
is wrong with this  picture.     

We acknowledge the elements of the perfect economic and political health  
care delivery storm and it is local individual and personal RESPONSIBILITY to  
address the elements of this problem, NOT create new federal dollars for the  
Government to pay for all bankruptcies.   God simply cannot make  enough money 
to pay for such failures.   I would welcome an  explanation or logic which 
would explain the simple math of the RIGHT to health  care where no one pays.     

It is also NOT the employers responsibility to make up for personal life  
style diseases and conditions incurred by the worker.   It is not the  
responsibility of the employers to make whole bad investments or health  insurance 
companies that went belly up.    

We are seeing the symptoms of an overwhelming system disease, and it is  
imperative that we assign the appropriate root cause, not add to the bad  math.  

Thank you, Claudia for pointing out and agreeing with many of the points  
made by so many people on this web site and across America and around the  world. 
  We have denied the root causes too long and as you point out  it is now 
time to point the finger at the right organizations and find the right  ways to 
finance our future and it is NOT government or  employers.    

Kenneth L. Mattox, MD

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