BY KAREN WEBB

An Open Letter to Sen. Steve Russell, R-Oklahoma City, and Rep. Paul Wesselhoft, R-Moore:

You are claiming States Rights to deprive every Oklahoman of having affordable health care. I would have preferred single payer, but I did not get it.

You are demanding that the Attorney General file suit against the federal government which most experts say is a waste of Oklahoma taxpayer money when you guys have cut taxes so much that you are depriving public education and senior care.

This reminds me of what happened regarding states rights with the Civil War because states rights is the reason southerners – and I am one – fought the war in the first place. However, the state right they wanted to keep was slavery.

Then the southerners used states rights to deprive African Americans and women the right to vote.

Keep in mind that the South lost the Civil War primarily because the various governors couldn’t agree on even a day of fasting and prayer. Each wanted to control their state armies.

In the case of health care, the Oklahoma GOP has done nothing much on health care except tort reform and they can’t even give examples of why they think we need tort reform. No proof whatsoever of excessive suits.

There are parts of this bill that you will be opting out of that Oklahomans need and you lying about what is in it is about as un-Christian as you can get. Both of you are constantly talking about military health care which is government-run health care.

What you want us to have is the continuation of the bureaucrats of the HMOs getting between me and my doctor and I can’t control them with my vote or anything else. I dealt with them while my dad was dying.

I will refuse to address either of you as my representative or senator because neither of you care one bit about the problems of anyone in your district, especially Sen. Steve Russell who is on his one man crusade to legislate religion. I was raised Southern Baptist when Southern Baptists believed in Separation of Church and State to protect the church as well as the state and now they have decided to run the state.

They used to believe in reforming and teaching through Bible at church and in the home and now they want to do it through legislation.

Thanks for nothing because I am positive that is what I will get because I have seen zero evidence that either of you care about anything except politics.

– Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer