Senator Young's "Response" to My Letter

I can't imagine why people believe that their "representatives" fail to represent them unless they bring a big fat campaign donation. Here is Senator Young's response to my letter, annotated with my comments:

Dear Mr. XXXXXXXX,

          Thank you for contacting me regarding efforts to repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).  I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

I suppose my letter was about your effort to "repeal and replace" Obamacare. If you had a better idea than Obamacare, you would have my wholehearted support. Your efforts, since going to Congress, have only been an attempt to make healthcare less affordable for people like me. Your efforts have been focused on making healthcare more profitable for the providers and less affordable for the patients.

          While the PPACA – the law known by most as Obamacare – sought to address skyrocketing health care costs and access to care issues, it largely failed, and Americans are now experiencing collapsing health insurance exchanges and soaring premiums.  

It is nice that Sen. Young now concedes, after a mere 8 years, that Obamacare was not some secret socialist plot to destroy America and the "greatest healthcare system on earth" (objective statistics be damned). As to your comments, Senator, on collapsing exchanges and soaring premiums, you now own these problems. You asked the American people to put you in charge; with power comes responsibility. Every penny that my premiums go up, and every benefit that is dropped from my health insurance, now rests with you. IT IS ON YOU.

The law also lacked sufficient regard for the doctor-patient relationship and consumer choice, and levied new taxes, fees, and mandates - many of which hit low and middle-income families and small businesses. 

Interesting that this bill is so bad that you have to lie about it Senator. The taxes contained in Obamacare were not aimed at low and middle-income families or small businesses, but the subsidies were. The taxes are on individuals' investment income in excess of $250,000/year. Raise your hand if you make more than a quarter million in investments a year. That is not low income. That is not middle income.

As to small businesses, that is a slippery term if I ever heard one. I know we all like to think a small business is a used record store, but it also encompasses each and every REIT, hedge fund, and capital investment group. I'm sure Brixmoor Properties is a "small business" in Senator Young's eyes, notwithstanding the fact that it owns an asset (real estate) worth several million dollars and collects hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in rental payments per year.

Further, please explain how Obamacare "lacked sufficient regard for the doctor-patient relationship and consumer choice." I suppose your bill is better in the consumer choice regard if that means "you get to choose everything you can afford." That sounds a bit like "the rich and poor alike are forbidden from begging and sleeping under bridges."

As to the doctor-patient relationship. Sen. Young, pass a law that states that a doctor owes a fiduciary duty to his/her patients, and you will not reek of hypocrisy. Until then, I can smell you from here.

          Obamacare has failed Hoosiers.  

Senator, you have never participated in the exchange. I have. If you are saying that it needs improvement, I agree. However, your purported "fix" to the American health care system makes every single problem with the system worse. As indicated above, you now own every problem with America's terrible health care system. Congratulations. 

Further, I note that the House bill contains a provision allowing states to opt out of consumer protections for me, but not for you and your staff. So, what am I to make of that? Good enough for me but not for thee?

One of my first votes in the Senate was to start the process of repealing and replacing this law that is collapsing under its own weight. 

When you say "collapsing under its own weight," I hear "our Republican sabotage of the law was working." I tell you what, Senator Marine, let's go out into the ocean on a boat; I'll start drilling holes in the boat and that can be evidence that boats don't work and we shouldn't rely on boats. How about that, Senator?

 Now that the House has sent over its bill, I look forward to working with my colleagues on a replacement that works for Indiana.

Why don't you work with your constituents to see how your votes will affect them? Why don't you see how many people will lose their insurance coverage as a result of your actions? Why don't you see what will happen to the cost of healthcare for those who get to keep their coverage? In a nutshell, why don't you please, for the love of God, consider the effect of your actions on the most vulnerable out there?

          Again, thank you for contacting me.  It is an honor to represent you in the United States Senate.

You're not welcome, Senator. I know you don't care about what I think, and you will never deign to explain yourself to "someone like me." Just remember, though, that when all is said and done, we have to answer to the Almighty for our actions. When I stand before St. Peter, I will answer for my actions. So will you, Senator. So will you.

Sincerely,
Todd Young
United States Senator

When we vote for people who profess to believe that the government can't make our lives better, we should be unsurprised when those people pass laws that utterly fail to improve our lives and indeed make our lives more difficult. Similarly, when the best the Indiana democratic party can do is pull Eddie Haskell Lobbyist Governor's Son Evan Bayh off the reclamation heap, then not only has Senator Todd Young failed us, so too has the Indiana Democratic party.