LETTER: Health Care Decision Not An Entitlement

The follow is a letter to the editor from Waltham residen Jacob Weiner: 

Last week, the of the Affordable Care Act.  Scott Brown lamented the decision as a “massive new federal entitlement” while his challenger, Elizabeth Warren, praised the court, commenting that it enables “every American [to] get access to high quality, affordable health care and fair treatment from insurance companies.”  As the child of two individuals whose “pre-existing” health conditions would have given insurance companies an excuse not to offer them care, I applaud Ms. Warren’s support of the bill, and the help it will undoubtedly bring to Massachusetts residents.  Senator Brown’s referral to the law as an “entitlement,” in an attempt to denigrate it, misses the point entirely; Health Care has been an entitlement for decades, a luxury of those who could afford to pay, or whose employers would cover them or their families.  It should be a right for all, regardless of social class or economic background, an “entitlement” of being born in America, just as it is in many of the other 36 countries which rank above us in care.

In January, one of these two individuals will be the junior Senator representing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  I for one, hope it will be Elizabeth Warren, the candidate crusading not for our “entitlements,” but for our rights.

Jacob Weiner

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