This page was last updated on April 8, 2012.
Commit to health care; Edward J. Hum; Beaver County Times; April 8, 2012. An editor’s note asserts, “The writer is a 1948 graduate of Geneva College.”
Mr. Hum has written more than 63 letters since mid-2004, including a 10-month hiatus from September 2007 to July 2008. Nearly three years after George W. Bush left office, most of Mr. Hum’s letters still are no more than exercises in bashing President Bush and/or other Republicans. Mr. Hum’s letters are also flame-throwing exercises. I don’t know if Mr. Hum actually believes what he writes, or if he simply likes to stir things up to call attention to himself.
Mr. Hum frequently includes “fellow Republicans” or something similar in his letters and is one of a group of local Republican impersonators (The group also includes Messrs. William A. Alexander, Arthur Brown, George Reese, and Oren M. Spiegler) who write claiming to be disgruntled Republicans. You have to give Mr. Hum “credit,” however, for going the extra mile to further his impersonation. As of September 2006, Mr. Hum was actually registered as a Republican despite the fact he’s no more a Republican than is Dennis Kucinich.
Given his body of work, for a while I wondered what Mr. Hum would use for subject matter now that Barack Obama is President. Mr. Hum wrote three letters in support of a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare monopoly (here, here, and here), then he reverted to his Bush-bashing habit, as in “Bush earns status as ‘most liberal.’” I guess some addictions are too tough to overcome. The last Hum letter I critiqued was entitled “Not Obama’s recession.”
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Geneva College has joined other groups in a lawsuit against women’s health, contraceptives, planned parenthood, sex education, etc. Will this group call for the U.S. to make a moral commitment that every citizen is entitled to health care as other Christian countries have done?”
[RWC] Mr. Hum’s assertion is untrue. The lawsuit, Geneva College v. Sebelius, is about the government forcing churches and church-related organizations to pay for abortions and abortifacient drugs against their religious beliefs. Unfortunately, Geneva appears to support Obamacare otherwise. At some point you would think religious organizations would learn their lessons about leftist ideology and getting into bed with leftists, but they never do.
“The U.S. spends 17 percent of its income on health care for some of us, compared with other countries spending 9 or 10 percent on everyone and getting as good or better medical results.”
[RWC] Blah, blah, blah. When I was a kid, we were taught the Soviet Union and the other Iron Curtain countries were relative utopias when it came to healthcare. Not so much as we eventually learned. Please read my paper entitled “Healthcare.”
“It looks as though those who want to repeal Obamacare are saying, ‘Are we our brother’s keeper?’”
[RWC] So, anyone who opposes a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare monopoly is “Cain?” You may recall believers in the religion of manmade global warming refer to skeptics as the equivalent of Holocaust deniers. What is it with these people?
If Mr. Hum believes a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare monopoly represents being “our brother’s keeper,” he is mistaken. There is nothing altruistic or charitable about telling government to rob from Peter to pay for Paul’s healthcare. Compassion is when a person freely chooses to use his own paycheck to help someone in need. Should people in need get help? Of course, but from private charities funded by voluntary contributions, not by confiscated earnings.
© 2004-2012 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.