Obamacare a good first step

I had no idea that my family’s personal experience with the Affordable Health Care Act (Pilot, April 2) would elicit such a negative, mean-spirited response (Pilot, April 9)

I will venture a guess that when the Social Security Act and later Medicare were first rolled out, that there were many chicken littles running around squawking about the dire future facing our nation. I do not claim that Obamacare is a panacea to the health care crisis, but that it is a positive first step in addressing an issue that we cannot continue to ignore.

I must ask why is one so negative when Congress and the President finally take the initiative in tackling the health care crisis? Could the answer be that one is being completely altruistic and realizes there is a conspiracy to destroy our democracy and must therefore inform others? Or could it be partisan politics, using their objection for the Affordable Health Care Act to support like-minded politicians seeking power and future election on an anti-Obama platform? Could it possibly be more sinister, such as an attempt to fatten their own investment portfolio?

I cannot answer these questions, but it does give me food for thought.

I do not personally know these thousands of Montana taxpayers that Mr. Coco claims are sacrificing a dignified retirement or losing the financial resources to send their children to college because of the Act. Is this fact, fiction, or hyperbole that was gleaned off talk radio? Could it be more accurate that these alleged hardships existed prior to the Affordable Health Care Act becoming the law of the land?

Mr. Coco, you need to relax, take a deep breath, and use your intellect, wit and energy toward offering solutions to the crisis we face by making affordable health care a basic human right for all Americans.

As far as my blissful early retirement at taxpayers’ expense that you refer to, I am continuing to work in the housing industry building homes in and around the Flathead Valley. My work in this arena is creating employment for plumbers, electricians and various tradesmen, allowing them the opportunity to earn a “living wage.”

— Phil Lewis lives in Whitefish.