Sounding Off:

I find it interesting that seemingly concerned and successful people can demonstrate on a street corner with signs and statements illustrating how woefully uninformed they are (“Locals decry health plan,” Aug. 5).

One sign in the photo encourages a “No” vote on HR 245. Actually, there have been two resolutions with this number introduced in the House in the past couple of years. First was the Personal Health Investment Act of 2007; this proposal to amend the Internal Revenue Code to pay for exercise equipment as medical care was never voted on. The most recent HR 245 is the Local Emergency Radio Service Preservation Act of 2009.

Another sign says, “Gov’t health care for us, private doctors for Loretta.” All of our congressional leaders are provided a health-care plan with a medical facility on Capitol Hill staffed by military doctors and funded and operated by the government.

Finally, there is a sign that reads, “Obamacare murders baby & grannie.” I assume murdering babies refers to the discussion about public health care paying for abortions in the case of rape or incest. With regard to grannie, I assume this is in reference to a section in some of the proposed health-care bills that allows seniors to voluntarily seek counseling for a will or power of attorney to direct family members as to whether the senior wants to be resuscitated or not. If you want to see who is killing children and seniors, you need to look no further than our governor in Sacramento and his line-item vetoes to the budget.

The article states that one of the protester’s biggest problems with the bill is the rationing of the health-care system. The protester goes on to assume that if there are too many people in the health-care system, there will not be enough doctors to take care of them. While I appreciate the concern for overpopulation, I wonder how many people we must cull from society to accommodate the number of doctors we have. Another says that U.S. citizens should be able to choose their own health-care plans; the proposals being considered offer a public plan as an option along with private plans. No one plan is mandatory in these proposals, so we do have the ability to choose our plans.

One protester questioned the efficiency of a government plan, saying that it would be absolute chaos. There are currently a number of government-run health-care plans: congressional health care, military health care, the Veterans Administration and Medicare. These are some of the best-run organizations available, and my experience with Medicare is that it is preferred by most doctors because there is less interference with the treatments they prescribe than with private insurers.

No one seems to recognize there is currently no health-care-reform bill before the House or Senate. There are a number of proposals that will eventually become a bill, and both Democrats and Republicans have provided input for those proposals.

This is an important issue, and everyone has a right to their concerns. We should wait until there is a bill to read and understand before we start such heated debate about it.

STEVE VELASCO is a Costa Mesa resident.