Greetings. I am a voting constituent in rural west Texas.
I’ve already written one letter today. And I really resent that I’m compelled to have to write another. But here I am.
I have written a number of times about my son who works in an ER in Austin. I have written about the lack of PPE. I have written about the lack of testing. I have written about how his hours and shifts have been cut to the point he will lose his apartment in a couple of months if things don’t change.
He works hard. He works long hours. He puts his life on the line every single day he walks through the hospital doors. Now, today, I read a NYT article about how the hospital bailout has gone the same way as the other ones passed to help those who need it most...the money has gone primarily to the wealthiest publicly-traded healthcare companies.
HCA, the company that owns/operates the hospital that my son works at is one of the largest recipients. And this after intense lobbying to HHS who then devised formulas to disperse funds, which mostly favored large, wealthy institutions.
Do you think it’s right that a giant healthcare conglomerate sitting on billions of dollars in reserves deserves billions more of taxpayer dollars? While cutting the livelihoods of their employees during a pandemic? While these same employees pay taxes that enable this conglomerate to receive a bailout?
You want to know how revolutions happen? Like this. On a day when we are honoring our military for keeping our country safe, we are stabbing our current front-line heroes in the back, all while lauding them for their service.
Let’s add craven hypocrisy to the list of what’s wrong with America today. It’s sickening.
What are you going to do to help your front-line constituents pay their rent in the coming months? Send the Blue Angels over again?
