I was born in Lincoln County in 1952. I moved back here the last time in 2003. As a taxpayer, I feel it is my civic duty to address the Daily Leader editorial of Friday, June 26 written by Rep. Bobby Moak, District 53’s incumbent Democrat. In this editorial he establishes his belief that the State of Mississippi should accept federal grant money available through President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. He also states that the healthcare law has lowered health care premiums. Stop! Whose? I ask. Not mine.

Case in point: I’d like to share my most recent experience with health care. For years I have carried a health care supplemental insurance company that pays 20 percent of my cost. Every year about this time a letter comes informing me of increased numbers of claims and amount of accrued co-pay. Usually the increase is $7 or $8 dollars. I accept and understand inflation. The letter also states the same reason for increase. I then called the company and spoke to a representative. I asked why an increase this time because I had had fewer claims, thus less co-pay. The representative said, “Oh, it is not you — it’s the other people.” So in turn I asked, “Do I have to pay other people’s insurance?” Her reply was, “Pretty much.” So I asked, “Is this due to President Obama’s new health care law?” Again, her reply was, “Pretty much.” Now my supplemental insurance has increased over $400 a year. Affordable? You don’t say!

Representative Moak states in his editorial that we can help with this grant to save our hospitals and support local doctors, nurses and other health professionals. Quite the contrary. Ask around and you will discover that many doctors, some locally, have left the profession in anticipation of this very law. You will also discover how many of the new insurance companies aren’t even honored.

Just as there is no free lunch, there is no free health care. Grants aren’t free dollars sitting in the halls of Congress or the Legislature performing some kind of magic. Somebody’s tax-money is paying another bill.

My mother has a favorite saying that there are givers and “takers” in the world. Fifty percent of the nation is paying the bills of the other 50 percent who pay no taxes. Our nation is more divided than ever. It is neither race, gender, nor religion that divides us. It is the issue of money — especially wasted tax money. In spite of President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” there is more poverty. The State of Mississippi compared to the federal government is in much better fiscal shape. Why would we want to do business like Washington, D.C.?

Politics can really be confusing when you only hear or read part of the story. President Abraham Lincoln was Republican, but the Confederate flag flew under the South’s Democratic Party. If you erase history, you may repeat history.

President Obama’s liberal spending makes me think of Robin Hood, and the Democrats “Tax and Spend” politics remind me of Jonathan Swift’s, “A Modest Proposal.”

Being right isn’t always popular and being popular isn’t always right.

Representative Moak has been a passing friend who comes from a good family, but he is wrong on many issues, this one directly affecting my personal health and many others.

 

Jan Smith Busby

is a Lincoln County resident