NewsWhore
05-21-2007, 05:50 PM
Adriano Miguel Tejada, editor-in-chief of the country's most widely read newspaper, Diario Libre, gives his opinion on the much-debated Family Health Service (SFS) program, which is currently in limbo. According to today's A.M. editorial, Tejada has been bombarded with correspondence about his stance on the SFS. Some say that he is biased, and he accepts this. In fact, he says that for some time he has been broadcasting the idea that the worst thing Dominicans suffer from is the lack of responsibility by which governments use taxpayers' resources and the passivity with which taxpayers accept paying twice for the same service.
Tejada says that "we pay taxes to cover the educational system, but we have to send our children to private schools depending on what we can afford; we pay for health care, but everyone who can, and many who can't, have to belong to some private health insurance plan (the unionists are the first to demand such a clause in a labor contract due to the collapse of the Dominican Social Security Institute (IDSS) of which they are a pret of the board of directors); we pay for every kilowatt of electricity that we consume, at a price that subsidizes others, and we have to provide our own generation system; we pay for good water, but we have to pay for everything from tanker trucks to five gallon jugs of water, and this happens with security, with garbage collection, with the universities... Even to the point of having to pay an "agent" to pay our taxes!"
The editor says that this health insurance program is another subsidy that the middle class, hard hit by the fact that the SFS eliminates many of the advantages offered by private insurance (and there were not many, but they looked like oasis compared to what there is now), and on top of everything the government begins to collect the tax before we know where, or how or when to go in the case of an emergency. His final plea: "Please, let's be serious and not politicians, at least for once in our lives."
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#4)
Tejada says that "we pay taxes to cover the educational system, but we have to send our children to private schools depending on what we can afford; we pay for health care, but everyone who can, and many who can't, have to belong to some private health insurance plan (the unionists are the first to demand such a clause in a labor contract due to the collapse of the Dominican Social Security Institute (IDSS) of which they are a pret of the board of directors); we pay for every kilowatt of electricity that we consume, at a price that subsidizes others, and we have to provide our own generation system; we pay for good water, but we have to pay for everything from tanker trucks to five gallon jugs of water, and this happens with security, with garbage collection, with the universities... Even to the point of having to pay an "agent" to pay our taxes!"
The editor says that this health insurance program is another subsidy that the middle class, hard hit by the fact that the SFS eliminates many of the advantages offered by private insurance (and there were not many, but they looked like oasis compared to what there is now), and on top of everything the government begins to collect the tax before we know where, or how or when to go in the case of an emergency. His final plea: "Please, let's be serious and not politicians, at least for once in our lives."
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#4)