(Re: “Health care a moral issue,” The Reporter, Aug. 21)

Thank you for using facts and logic, for debunking myths, and for not being afraid to say what others have been too timid to admit.

Health care reform is one of the most important issues, if not the most important, to come up in our lifetime, and I am saddened by the level of discourse taking place around this subject.

You’d think that Americans would be discussing the relative merits of the various bills being considered, but instead people are wasting valuable time shouting lies.

The thing that gets me is that most of the players involved (the AMA, pharmaceutical companies, health insurers, the business community) actually favor reform.

In fact, many of them stand to gain financially from the bills now being considered.

That can only mean the real motive behind the opposition is purely political.

The opposition party is willing to derail this important legislation for the purely strategic reason that they want the Democrats, and in particular, President Obama, to fail.

 This is a test of Americans’ collective character. We have been tested several times in the past decade.

When clever politicians used fear to further their political ambitions, did we stand up and protect our beloved Constitution?

No, we let them kowtow us into saying that it was okay to curtail some of our fundamental rights, as long as it would keep us safe.

The test was whether we would fight to protect our freedom in the face of fear. We failed that test.

We were tested again when our leaders took us into a preemptive war on false pretenses.

We were too scared and too preoccupied to sort fact from fiction. Now nearly seven years and tens of thousands of lives later, we are still fighting that war. We failed that test.

Now we are being tested again. We have the opportunity to overhaul our broken system of health care coverage.

This is an opportunity to provide needed coverage to 47 million of our fellow citizens — to protect the health and lives and financial wellbeing of some of our society’s most vulnerable members.

Are we going to allow Sarah Palin to Facebook about Death Panels and to continue to allow the debate to be hijacked by political strategists?

Or are we going to use our voices, our technology and our resources to tell our friends and our elected officials that in America we want – we expect – we demand the best for ourselves and our fellow citizens?

Are we going to get this right, or are we going to fail this test too?

Rhonna Kallendar

Sammamish