Dear Editor,

Democrats continue to try to put lipstick on a pig. Obamacare is a real oinker. Although you can almost always find something good about anything — and lord knows the Democrats are trying — taken as a whole, Obamacare is a bad program.

Despite promises made, your doctor is often NOT included in your plan. And often, providers flee the state after one year, as has happened each of the last two years with Kentucky’s largest providers, United Healthcare last year and Kentucky Health Cooperative the year before. This leaves policy holders scrambling to find policies at much higher prices. Even if working people can afford the policy, typically deductibles are so high — usually, in the thousands of dollars — that for many, that is the same as no coverage at all.

Policy prices in some states have risen over 200 percent in the last four years, rising more than 100 percent alone in Arizona just this last year. Last year the state of Texas saw a 53 percent increase in premiums. And even at that, the program is not sustainable.  

And then there is the I.R.S. component. The I.R.S. enacts penalties on those who it decides have non-complying policies. I was charged with such a penalty even though the I.R.S. was in the wrong — but just try telling them that. It took four months of time-consuming correspondence to convince them. It is NEVER a good idea to have the I.R.S. involved in healthcare. Yet Democrats, other than Bill Clinton who called Obamacare “the craziest thing you ever saw”, are sitting on their hands in the Senate, and doing nothing.

Is it any wonder that in Kentucky in the last year alone Republican registrations are up by 52,900 new voters and Democratic registrations are actually in negative numbers. But Republicans need to take the opportunity they have been given and do their job and engineer a healthcare delivery system that works. You sure won’t get any help from the Democrats. They are all hopelessly in denial.

Eben D. Henson

Danville