The letter from Rena Peterson is not quite on the mark regarding The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It can’t be called Obamacare, because he doesn’t seem to know what’s in it.

Drivers/owners of vehicles are required to have insurance for the damage that they may cause to OTHER people or their property (Public Liability and Property Damage) self-injury and property insurance is optional (read medical or collision). PPACA requires insurance to pay for your own medical care.

The proper method to reform health care would have been to allow insurance companies to sell health insurance across state lines, write tort reform law and require insurance companies to insure for previous conditions. PPACA removes approximately $50 billion from Medicare coverage over the next 10 years to help pay for the plan and with the Independent Payment Advisory Board making decisions on what is covered and how much will be paid, doctors and hospitals makes for health care rationing for senior citizens to me.

I tried digesting the PPACA from the House site and it takes a lawyer to understand it. Notwithstanding the thousands of exceptions the president has given countless organizations, it is ironic that the very people who wrote this law were staff members of Congress and they are now going to receive substantial taxpayer paid subsidies to offset the increased taxes for their “Cadillac” government health insurance policies.

I predict that there will be a lot more unintended consequences to this law. We will just have to sit around the fire popping our corn and wait for the fun to begin!

PAUL CIRUSO

Athol