Star-Bulletin letters on health care reform

I was stunned by Richard Webster's letter imploring U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono to vote against health care reform ("Please vote 'no' on health reform," Star-Bulletin, March 16). According to a recent Harvard University study, 44,600 Americans die prematurely each year for lack of adequate health insurance. They are sent to early graves for the crime of being unable to afford health insurance.

This is more than a 9/11 each and every month.

If Mr. Webster and those who agree with him succeed, this shameful situation will continue indefinitely.

I implore Rep. Hirono to vote yes, and save these people.

Rick Lloyd
Honolulu

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Doctors worried by 'Obamacare'

A newsletter affiliated with the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine — Recruiting Physicians Today — has just published a survey showing that almost half of practicing doctors in the U.S. will give serious consideration to leaving the practice of medicine if Obamacare becomes law.

Also just published was a study from the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in Massachusetts that concludes Obamacare will cost America up to 700,000 jobs by 2019.

It's time for our sole House representative in Washington to reconsider her past support for what amounts to a governmental takeover of a sixth of the U.S. economy.

Not only will Obamacare increase the federal budget deficit, but it's now clear that it will founder miserably on other criteria, not the least of which is that it will cause a severe shortage of doctors and cost our economy badly needed, good-paying jobs.

Rep. Mazie Hirono needs to wake up! Obamacare will hurt the availability of quality care in Hawaii and nationally.

Dr. Michael P. Rethman
Kaneohe

[P.S. he's a dentist]

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Please vote 'no' on health reform

Again I implore U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono to vote against the pending health care bill in Congress.

This proposed bill is clearly unconstitutional in many sections.

In addition, this bill is a socialistic step of huge and disastrous proportions that will destroy the best health care system in the world. It takes so many personal freedoms from our citizens that it will effectively place us into socialistic servitude.

Finally it is economically unsustainable and will further accelerate the demise of the dollar.

Those who vote for this bill must surely be listed in the annals of history as the legislators who did the most to destroy the freedoms afforded U.S. citizens in the Constitution by supporting the worst bill in the history of our country.

Richard Webster
Lahaina