OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT, SENATORS, & CONGRESSMEN

By Woodrow Wilcox

An elderly woman phoned me because she read an article by me in a local newspaper. The senior citizen is from Lansing, Illinois.

I listened to her story. She fell at a local drug store, was taken to a hospital, and got some stitches. The hospital got paid by Medicare, the woman’s insurance company, and by the drug store’s insurance company. Now, Medicare wants its money back. But, the woman does not have the money. When she phones Medicare’s bill collector’s phone number, she gets a recorded instruction to contact the company via the internet. The woman is 85 years old and does not know how to use the internet.

Normally, I would not help because I’m not supposed to help seniors who are not clients of the insurance agency where I work. I have helped senior citizens with medical bill problems that were caused by Medicare and by the VA medical clinic system for over six years. I have saved elderly clients of this insurance agency over $600,000 by canceling bad medical bills.

In this case, I decided to help this woman on my own time and at my own expense. Over the last six years, I have written over 100 articles about problems with the Medicare system. Many of the articles can be read at www.medicareproblems.net. I wrote all those articles and distributed them to newspapers around the country on my own time.

I’m not trying to boast. I just want to explain that I help senior citizens who have problems with Medicare. I care about senior citizens. I’m not sure that the President and some Senators and Congressmen do care about seniors.

There are problems with Medicare, the VA Clinics, and Medicaid. There are problems with other health care segments, too. But, no one can fix a problem by not listening to reasonable, responsible people who have experience in the field.

That is what I am accusing the President and some Senators and Congressmen of doing – not listening. The Democratic leaders and many Democratic members of the Senate and the House fashioned “their” health care reform bill without listening to the concerns of many respected people.

Rather than bringing people together to reach a consensus, the President and his allies have done exactly the opposite. No proposal by a Republican or a moderate Democrat was considered. The legitimate concerns of the dissenters were not reviewed to allow compromises to correct problems in the bill. The President and/or his allies called opponents of “their” health care reform bill “Nazis” and “racists” instead of listening to legitimate concerns about the bill. The President and/or his Democrat allies called health insurance company executives and employees “greedy” and “special interests” instead of listening to the legitimate objections of those people.

Citizens who read the health care reform bill (H.R. 3200) online and attended town hall meetings with their congressional representatives were shocked, insulted, and angered to realize that many of their congressional representatives never read the proposed law and just parroted some false talking points written by the supporters.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama promised to bring people together. But, he and his Democrat allies in Congress have used arrogance, smugness, rudeness, insults, and disinformation to alienate many people in the country including other Democrats.

The President and his Democrat allies in Congress should stop the rudeness, listen to the legitimate concerns of those who object to problems in the current bill, and change the proposed law to get rid of the legitimate objections. No one can get other people’s cooperation by refusing to listen and casting insults.

Note: Woodrow Wilcox is the senior medical bill problem solver at Senior Care Insurance Services in Merrillville, Indiana. That is the largest senior citizen oriented insurance agency in the Midwest. For articles and videos by Woodrow Wilcox, visit www.medicareproblems.net, www.woodrowwilcox.com, and www.woodrowwilcox.tv.
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Written on October 9, 2009 by
Woodrow Wilcox
Wilcox News Service