Thoughts on election money, health care reform

Editor:

Undoubtedly for this senior, this is the most expensive, longest and obscene election since Eisenhower's second term. Compare this to the Canadian system. In 2010, the prime minister of Canada called a national election. From that day, the election was held five weeks later. The campaign donation limit to any politician is $1,100 per citizen. With the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, Carl Rove's was able to bring in $11 million from out-of-state for Rehberg's campaign.

During the previous two years, Rehberg and his tea party friends in Congress had caused gridlock by voting in unison against all Obama's programs, reminiscent of the old Soviet Politburo. From the beginning, Sen. Tester has been under brutal attack by the Rehberg-Koch consortium over his support of the Affordable Care Act, called Obamacare.

But let's look back to 2007-08 when we were under the old for-profit system when 48 million citizens were uninsured and the remainder, including industry, paying ever-increasing premiums. The United States was rated 33rd in effective health care, right behind Cuba. The low-income groups, as a last resort, had to use emergency services which is the most expensive of all health care.

The concept behind the creation of a national health policy is to provide an affordable system that practices cost containment, avoids duplication, provides lower cost drugs and everybody is covered, the same as other advanced countries. This is not perfect but is a good start and no services in Medicare are cut.

Arlo Skari

Chester