Dear Editor:

Obama era’s healthcare act was created in two years, in the open, with contributions by many members of the healthcare community, including doctors, nurses, patients and hospitals. Today’s proposed new bill was created in secret. Who is being served, and who receives harm?

No one chooses illness over good health. No one chooses to be born with or to acquire disabilities. Veterans bring home many illnesses and disabilities and we reward them with more pain and suffering. Children and the elderly are likewise disenfranchised by the proposed healthcare bill. Tax payers are harmed as the bill takes large sums of tax dollars and hands it to the wealthy leaving ill and disabled stranded.

In 2010 the United States worked as a team. We were an empathetic, caring and decent nation who recognized that health was a key link to success in life and in our economy. Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) had passed for paid sick leave because it kept all workers healthy on the job while colleagues were recovering at home.

Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy, a wealthy man, had made passing the ACA legislation his life's work. It was proposed and signed as The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Before Obama was sworn into office, the GOP pledged not to support any of his efforts irrespective of the good it provided. Sadly it was no surprise that they would spend their time with our tax dollars to thwart any accomplishments.

Senator Kennedy did not seek tax dollars from working America for himself. His daughter Kara wrote about her father in the Boston Globe Magazine. In that story she shared that what mattered to her father was not the scale of an accomplishment, but that they did their share to make the world better, and they learned they were part of something larger than themselves.

Perhaps the GOP should focus on making the world a better place by using tax dollars to help those in need - not to give to un-needy wealthy friends.

Jarryl Larson

Edgecomb