Today (July 21) I received his newsletter from my US Congressman Sander Levin D District 9 Michigan. In it he reports, New study: "Affordable Care Act (ACA) lowers uninsured rate" according to which 9.5 million additional adults ages 19 to 64 are now covered by insurance, and the national adult uninsured rate declined from 20 percent to 15 percent. He adds that according to this Commonwealth Fund study "a large majority of enrollees report that they are generally happy with their health care coverage."
Well, I don't trust these numbers because the Commonwealth Fund is part of the Commonwealth Foundation which did a major part of the research for the Affordable Care Act so they have a vested interest in reporting rosy numbers. I'm interested in what's missing, the not so rosy numbers. I have been told directly by a few and have read many others complain that their health care premiums have increased along with deductibles. Where are those numbers?
Mr Levin continues with his support of "Not My Boss' Business Act" (H.R. 5051) or formally, Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act. (Should be government interference) He claims "Access to contraception helps to prevent unintended pregnancies, control timing of planned births and treat medical conditions like endometriosis. Yes these are desirable things. So what? I desire lots of things. Can I get the government to force someone to give them to me? But Levin is claiming that the Hobby Lobby decision allows Hobby Lobby to deny access to birth control for women.
Now look at what Mr Levin is really saying: if a company fails to provide employees with anything, it is then guilty of denying access to those things and is guilty of a crime. Congressman Sander Levin has made a living inventing crimes like denying access to just about anything. People don't have access to affordable health care, affordable education, now it's affordable birth control. Nowhere does he show anyone's rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness being violated. That's because there are no such violations. He is ignoring the fact that all those things that are no longer affordable are due to the policies he has legislated in the past. Government financing and regulation of education has made education more expensive not less. Same with health care and insurance.
If armed gunmen stood at the doors of your doctor or your insurance company and said no admittance, that would be denial of access. But not having enough money to pay for something or worse yet, not having someone forced to give it to you, is not denial of access. Businessmen have a moral right to decide what if any benefits they want to offer to employees. Employees have the moral right t decide what wages and benefits to accept. Government has no moral right to interfere in this activity except where rights may be violated. Mr Levin has also invented other crimes like predatory this or that or unfair this other thing. But that can wait for another post.
Lastly, the Congressman bemoans a Supreme Court decision that he says "...undercut the VRA{voting rights act-MN}by invalidating a key section of the law." He doesn't identify that key provision so I can't say exactly what he's talking about. But I have a feeling it's about the ruling that states can require ID for voting eligibility. Now why would he not want states to verify voting eligibility?
Mr Levin has been in office for over 30 years and should, like his brother Senator Carl Levin, retire.
