I write to inform your newspaper’s readers why they should ask Sen. Susan Collins to vote in favor of the Graham-Cassidy legislation currently pending in the U.S. Senate, which would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

The passage of this law will reduce the harmful interference of the federal government in each state’s health insurance marketplace.

Instead, the law will promote and increase the authority of each state’s legislators and insurance regulators to work with consumers and insurance companies to find the most effective ways to deal responsibly with the most urgent needs of each state’s population. This collaborative process will ultimately make the most efficient use of the limited taxpayer resources and consumer expenditures that are available.

For the past seven years, we’ve all seen the incompetence and burdensome costliness that have resulted from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, for most health care consumers. These grim outcomes are attributable directly to the lack of ability of the ACA’s federal bureaucracy to competently administer health care policies.

It’s time for Sen. Collins to candidly acknowledge the ACA’s dismal continuing failures. She would serve her constituents best by entrusting the development and execution of fiscally sound health insurance policies to the skilled regulatory officials and consumer-focused private groups, including well-supervised insurance companies, whose livelihoods are solely focused and dependent on the effective performance of that industry.

Sen. Collins should return the operation of the health insurance industry to the professionals instead of letting federal bureaucrats continue to ruin our health insurance marketplace. If she continues to support the ACA in the face of its unfixable incompetencies, she’ll be telling the state of Maine that she doesn’t think we’re capable of deciding how to act in our own best interests.

James Clingensmith

Saco

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