Letter: Obamacare critic distorts the facts
President Barack Obama speaks at the American Medical Association annual meeting in Chicago in 2009. (June 15, 2009) Credit: AP
In "The real insanity inside the Beltway" [Opinion, Oct. 13], columnist Ted Bromund applauds that the executive branch cannot get what it wants simply because it demands it.
In fact, our system of separation of powers worked perfectly: The executive branch supported legislation, the Affordable Care Act; the legislative branch approved it; and the judicial branch upheld its constitutionality. Furthermore, we have had a national election since its passage, where the law was a major issue, and the president was handily re-elected.
The president is simply saying that the fight over the Affordable Care Act already has occurred, compromises were made during that fight, and the budget and funding battles are not the place to revisit this issue.
Tea party Republicans continually try to undermine the effective, constitutionally based running of our democracy to get their own way.
Bromund is also guilty of the insidious use of so-called facts. He compares the cost of Obamacare to the size of the Canadian economy, noting they are about equal. Let's dissect the numbers: First, he compared the cost of Obamacare over 10 years to the size of the annual economy of Canada. Second, he fails to relate that to the relative population of the two countries; Canada is a little more than 10 percent the size of the United States in population. Third, he doesn't put the cost of Obamacare in perspective relative to the total U.S. budget. Last, he only cites costs, not other factors, such as projected savings or increases in revenue.
Thomas Wallace, Wading River