Plan good enough for us, but not Congress?

It would be interesting to see the cost per person for current health care for our president and Congress. They are forcing something down our throats that is not good enough for them, yet they judge it good enough for us.
It should be mandatory that if a health bill is passed, it applies to all government employees as well as the people who elected them.

-- Ronald Gernetzke, Sun Prairie

Hypocrisy apparent in health care debate

I am confused. I keep seeing ads on television about how bad it would be to have government "get between" me and my health care provider.
These ads come from the same people who want government to control decisions made between my provider and me on the issue of abortion. Isn't that hypocrisy? I think so.
This is all about money, not health care decisions. Shame on those obstructionists in Congress with the best health care who leave the rest of us on our own.
The best health care decision we could make would be to remove from office every member of Congress who slows the process of reform.

-- Patricia S. Rogeberg, Madison

Public support for Obama plan still strong

Disingenuous, misleading, biased and negative. These are some of the words I'd use to describe your front-page Associated Press analysis of President Barack Obama's health care plan in Thursday's paper.
The article says that public support for the president's health care plan is lagging. But what the numbers it uses really indicate is that the public is getting impatient and discouraged with the lack of action on the part of Congress and the president's reluctance to push harder.
The truth is that in the latest polls that asked germane questions, such as a recent Employee Benefit Research Institute poll, over 80 percent of the American people indicated that they want health care reform and that they want a government insurance option as a part of that reform.
Please stick to reporting the facts rather than manipulating them, and save your editorializing for the Opinion page.

-- Ted Lichtenheld, Cambridge

Focus on energy -- health care fix can wait

President Barack Obama is an intelligent person with a lot of energy. It's too bad he hasn't appropriately focused on the one thing that will give Americans the most bang for their bucks -- energy itself.
Bailouts for Chrysler and GM should never have occurred. The car companies that listened to the Bush administration's obvious intent to "build what you want" should have been allowed to sink or swim on their own for not recognizing and acting to help Americans thwart the redundant energy debacle.
My advice for Obama is simple: Fix the energy disease and the economy will flourish. Despite what occurred in the banking industry in September 2008, energy is to blame for most of our economic issues. The health care fix can wait.

-- Brian Brown, DeForest

Slow down and actually read health care bill

At President Barack Obama's urging we rushed to pass the stimulus package. As yet only a small percentage of the funds have been distributed and unemployment numbers are moving up quickly.
And now we supposedly have another crisis -- health care. We are being asked to approve another government program, funded by money we don't have, which asks too few doctors and nurses for services they can't provide.
Maybe during the recess our representatives and senators can actually read the stimulus bill they have already signed -- and perhaps actually gain understanding of the 1,000-plus page health care bill.

-- Dick Anderson, Stoughton