We can secure our own health insurance

(UNEDITED)Rick Stewart in "We Need Senators Who Don't Have Health Care" (Standard-Examiner, 26 November, p 10A) claims he has only two choices in health care: "Take the company's health care provider or don't." He then denigrates his coverage and lack of control about what his insurance will cover. He further berates 39 Republican senators for trying to prevent the Senate from debating Senator Reid's health care bill.

Like many, who argue political issues, he omits an obvious third choice: He can secure his own health care insurance. Employer-provided insurance sometimes does not meet the needs of the employee. That employee has the choice of accepting what is given (at significant expense to his/her employer), work to help his employer obtain better coverage, or provide for himself. He could have at least thanked his employer (The Standard-Examiner) for the insurance he does have. Many don't even have that.

The Declaration of Independence declares that "... all men ... are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." We are fortunate in this country to have the best health care in the world. It is not inexpensive. For those in need of care there is generally a way provided to administer that care. The Standard-Examiner often runs stories about how neighbors have given to neighbors to pay for expensive procedures when insurance was lacking or non-existent. We live in a most generous society. The surest way to discourage that generosity is to relieve people of any opprotunity to be "neighborly" and push all accountability to some impersonal entity, an insurance company in this case.

Mr. Stewart is responsible for providing his own health care and that of his family, just as I am for myself and my family. Those 39 senator are correct in trying to stop, or at least slow, a head-long rush to relieve any of us from accountability for ourselves or opportunity to help one another.

William C. Merx

Roy