The only benefit to private companies is the tax savings, since life insurance premiums are not taxed. It is a tax sheltered investment to them. But for public entities, which pay no tax on earnings, where is the advantage? There is none. They are paying insurance companies big bucks and getting absoluterly nothing in return.

Again it would have been nice for the Congressmen to issue something of a press release stating something along the lines of oh…”While I’m unable in good conscience to support this health care reform effort presently, I wanted to make perfectly clear that I stand with my friend & colleague John Lewis and other reform supporters in our party & state & nation and against those who would demean and diminish this worthy prospect and his & our noble cause of reforms by viscous slurs, racist name calling, vituperative cat-calls and still worse that was seen by some of the opposition throughout this effort, and especially here yesterday at the Capitol. It was & is deeply despicable & deplorable, and I for one am deeply shamed to see it, and to hear of it directed towards such fine & great men of the State of Georgia. I condemn them unequivocally.”

But again alas & alack, I’ve heard nothing like that. So again, I’ll tell you. It’s fine that you can come up with stats saying that Cong. Barrow supported his caucus better than 90% of the time thus year. There’s many, many ways to come up with the stats. I’ll not dispute them here. Just note the growing rep the Congressman has of as Harry Reid put it of Joe Lieberman ‘he’s with us mostly unless we need him’.

Now I may even have an affection for many deeply Conservative Congresscritters across the board. (If you’re really ‘conservative enough’, you’re vehemently anti-war too, especially of the needless ‘war of choice’ kinds, BTW). But no doubt about it, this was about the most important vote of his career, and I think it would have helped him in his campaign. We desperately needed him to be with us on this one. But be that as it may? Please do take up my suggestion and offer up a statement on the deplorable tactics of the opposition that was seen yesterday & throughout this overly long process. That would be helpful here. So perhaps would a more detailed explanation of his thinking on why he was a consistent no vote, despite you claiming repeatedly that he was ‘for a public option’. Thanks. JMP