OrilliaMatters received the following open letter to Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop from community advocate/writer Dennis Rizzo, regarding the government's proposed changes to the health-care system.
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Your government, which claims to be "for the people", is tabling legislation which puts the health of millions of Ontarians at risk.
The changes to health care that you support would require anyone not covered by an employer health policy to purchase coverage, or wait in separate, long lines for service at "public" clinics.
This change has nothing to do with the inflated debt Mr. Ford claims to have inherited and everything to do with paying off his insurance company brothers with a profitable private health care system. This is nothing less than American-style "health care".
The programs that you will change through your complicity in this unfounded action will affect thousands of your "people" in Simcoe North. Families will be required to pay for their own coverage, or forego necessary treatments and care; perhaps die. Employers already struggle to provide extra benefits for their people.
They will have to pay more out of their own pockets to cover their employees or stop providing benefits and risk losing productivity because of employee illness.
Individuals and families in the United States pay upwards of $1,000 A MONTH for coverage if they are not covered by an employer's plan. I know - I come from that system, and people die under that system because they cannot afford insurance premiums or to pay out of their pockets for a doctor's care.
Stop the rush to judgement on this very important issue. Take a look at the comments sent to your premier instead of blindly clapping at his every whim and whistle.
Look at the thousands of letters sent in; comments requested by your own government "for the people" but never reviewed.
People - the very people you claim to represent - will have money taken out of their pockets to cover health care that is now covered by the taxes they already pay. Will you reduce taxes to make up for "out-of-my-pocket" costs to your people?
Ask yourself - if you were not privileged and beyond the need for free public health care, would you want this system for your family? How many families will need to go into debt or declare bankruptcy because of your vote? How many Ontarians will have to die?
Canada is better than this - it is better than the Americans. Be better than the lowest denominators in your party and vote "for the people", not for the insurance companies.
Dennis Rizzo
Orillia
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