Dear Mr. Crum:
Thank you for writing to me to express your opposition to healthcare reform. I appreciate the time you took to write to me, and I welcome this opportunity to convey my opinions on how we should reform our health care system.
I support reforming our healthcare system. The key is to find a healthcare plan that provides coverage, as well as limits cost. My colleagues in the Senate and I have been working on this, but it is a difficult issue and must be carefully thought out. I hope that when the Senate Committee on Finance considers a healthcare reform proposal, the Committee will pass a bill which can accomplish these goals and can be effectively merged with the bill passed by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Other health reforms are also necessary. I strongly believe that any healthcare reform legislation should prohibit coverage denial based on preexisting conditions. Reducing healthcare premium costs is absolutely essential. Between 2000 and 2007, combined profits for 10 of the country's largest publically traded insurance companies rose 428 percent. I am also concerned about the astronomical growth of entitlement spending, which makes up 56 percent of all federal dollars spent in 2009. Health reform must bend the healthcare cost curve, slowing the growth of entitlements in order to reduce our nation's debt and budget deficit.
Any Senate health reform bill must improve California's complex health care system, and please know that I am working hard with my colleagues to make health care affordable for all Americans, without adding to the federal deficit.
Again, thank you for contacting me. If you should have any further comments or questions, please feel free to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.
Sincerely yours, Dianne Feinstein
