Bravo, Henry! That's a great letter.

It's time we all get real about Jerry Moran's ideas because they don't hold water. (And, if you don't live in Jerry Moran's district, please also hold your own representative to account for what they seem to advocate.)

Often what these lawmakers advocate simply sounds good but will do no good whatsoever.

For example, Rep. Moran wants to provide "tax incentives to low-income families to retain or purchase private health insurance."

What? He is completely out of touch with reality on this one. Here's why giving tax incentives to low income people to purchase private insurance will never work.

1. First, health insurance for the poor is expensive when purchased in the free market system. Why is it expensive for the poor?

Actuarials use various characteristics of members of risk pools to determine the price of insurance premiums. The premiums for the poor are sky high because these attributes are used against them: 1) the fact that they often work in high risk manual labor jobs, 2) the fact that they aren't paid much which means they are at greater risk for getting sicker (truly, this is an actuarial attribute), 3) the fact that due to their low income they may have gone for periods of time without seeing a doctor or having insurance, which also ups their actuarial risk factors, and, 4) credit histories are used against them also in determining premium pricing. So, bottom line, Jerry Moran's idea of "private health insurance" will be simply out of reach for the poor and much of the middle class.

2. Even if premiums billed to the poor weren't so much higher, it's ridiculous to think that the "tax incentives to low-income families" will provide low-income families with any additional money (extra cash) for buying insurance.

Low-income families, by definition, pay very little tax because they make so little. Even if they kept all of their money and gave none of it to the IRS, they still wouldn't have enough left over to pay for insurance. Insurance costs too much in the "private" market that Moran advocates. It's simply unaffordable.

Finally, allow me to address Moran's use of the word "access" as it relates to healthcare.

Jerry Moran will talk extensively about rural healthcare and "healthcare access" but he is NOT meaning what you may think. When he says "access" - he strictly means paying doctors and hospitals more money. He does NOT mean making it possible for more underinsured or uninsured or Medicare/Medicaid people to 'access' care. In fact, Jerry's congressional voting records shows that he has a consistent propensity to increase payments to "access points" (ie. docs/hospitals/pharmacists) while at the same time slashing Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP/Veterans health benefits or increasing copays and deductibles to the patients, thereby actually having the result of: 1) allowing docs/hospitals to make more money while seeing fewer patients, and, 2) causing fewer patients to be able to access care. Don't be fooled.

Jerry Moran has voted with a majority of his Republican colleagues 96.1% of the time during the current Congress.

He does not intend to back any workable health care reform measures nor has he presented any sound or workable alternatives for adequate health reform.

Pamela, that is a great comment. Did I miss that in post form somewhere? If not I would really like to encourage you to make a blog post of it. Good stuff, and often overlooked.

Thanks Daniel. I'll do it.