To the editor:

Please allow me to address a serious misstatement in Mark Schenck’s March 2 column.

Democrats did not say that Obamacare would insure “…30 million Americans that had no health insurance…” Democrats attempted to implement a self-supporting Affordable Care Act that would apply to all low-wage working Americans who cannot afford for-profit health insurance. The new word “Obamacare” did not exist until powerful insurance industry lobbyists successfully removed the “affordable” aspect by turning Democrats’ original proposal into another for-profit marketplace. Uncompromised, the act President Obama proposed would affect only the working poor; those able to pay for their for-profit policies could keep them.

The immensely profitable health insurance industry successfully portrayed Obama’s public option proposal as a European styled single-payer plan. The public option, based on the same principle as Social Security, would be federally regulated, but not federally funded. Low-wage workers would pay their premiums through payroll deduction, but based on their ability to pay, rather than insurance industry profitability. Under the Obamacare marketplace, the health insurance industry not only profits from America’s poorest workers, they justify raising the rates of already insured Americans to make up the loss of profit on insuring the working poor at lower rates.

Obamacare is far removed from the original Affordable Care Act proposal, and President Obama’s name was not associated with it until it was contaminated and polluted with health insurance marketplace profitability. True affordable health insurance would benefit the working poor, and would not affect any who can afford for-profit coverage. Insurance industry lobbying now allows profit on health insurance for our nation’s poorest workers, and deceptive justification for raising the rates of workers making adequate wages or salaries.

Personally, I would like to see Obamacare replaced – with the original Affordable Care Act proposal, which would have benefited the working poor, and affected no one else.

Robert C. Currie Jr.

Laurinburg