Your View: A closer look at Alexandria’s uninsured

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Your View: A closer look at Alexandria’s uninsured
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By Dino Drudi, Alexandria (File photo)

To the editor:
City Councilor Tim Lovain’s recent letter (“We must help Alexandria’s uninsured with health care costs,” September 8) brings to mind Lord Woodhouselee’s dictum, “Democracy will last ‘til the people realize they can vote themselves benefits from the public treasury.”

A dollop for this group and a dollop for that special interest and hope you’ve doled out enough dollops from city council’s egregious tax increases that they turn out on Election Day to keep you in office.

The Affordable Care Act could not guarantee every American health insurance. Health insurance for all is likely to cost more than its proponents estimate, and it isn’t particularly profitable for the health insurance industry.

The ACA’s dirty little secret is the ethically odious medical device tax, which in part finances the law, including — even if indirectly — expanded Medicaid in the 31 states accepting the provision. The 19 states, including Virginia, which have not, free up funding so that eventually the tax can be repealed.

Meanwhile, as living pattern preferences change to draw higher-income residents closer to the urban core, more needy residents will be displaced to the suburbs and rural areas, reducing their number here, while high-end housing developments sufficiently augment our tax base.

That means a small subsidy like what Lovain’s letter proposes will suffice to provide Alexandria’s remaining uninsured with basic health care.

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