Editor:

There are things that need doing for more comprehensive health care coverage, but they should be done rightly, not wrongly and dangerously. As a follow-up, I will attempt to call attention to a few of the many serious problems seen in the congressional bill HR 3200, and potentially in Senate bills.

Sections 122, 123, and 124. These empower bureaucrats to make medical decisions, and the determinations of what benefits (i.e. care) are approved, or withheld (rationing).

Section 163. Empowers government entities to have access to each individual's financial information, and access bank accounts, and Section 1801 has more provisions for access to all personal financial information. Then, Section 1651 gives the Attorney General access to all your medical data.

Section 223. Here it denies any "administrative or judicial review" against government monopoly (ratifies price fixing, at the least).

Section 1401. This states the government will build data and registries on individuals, with authority to secure data from any department or agency of the U.S. (that establishes the building of dossiers of public and private information).

Section 1704. This shifts a multibillion-dollar burden of payments to hospitals that have a "disproportionate share" of Medicare and Medicaid type patients to the states.

Section 1713. This has the potential for rules that require compulsory abortions.

Section 1751. This makes provisions for the bureaucracy to decide which "health care conditions" will (and will not) be paid for (outright rationing).

Section 1904. This mandates a program to send government representatives into homes to tell parents how to parent (according to bureaucratic determination).

Section 3121. This mandates identification of specific goals and objectives for prevention and wellness activities. This opens the door to potential development of a eugenics plan, and a euthanasia plan (note, also, end-of-life provisions elsewhere in the bill) to enhance the balance of wellness (a measure, the likes of Hitler would have welcomed, to speed up his infamous program).

It would seem that the president, and a large number of those elected to Congress, are bent on messing up a lot of things, and taking over important decisions in our lives ("power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely").

N.R. HILLMER, Lander