Editor, The Herald:

A letter to the editor titled “Paying For The Healthcare Bill” was published in The Farmville Herald on 9/14/2010. It included the blame that “the enormous Federal healthcare bill supported by Tom Perriello and signed into law, will be paid for largely by cuts to services for the elderly.”

Yes, H.R. 3200 is now Public Law 111-5. Yes, it is enormous in its social and medical significance and in its complexity. Yes, it was and is supported by Tom Perriello. It is NOT, however, being “paid for largely by cuts to services for the elderly.” That is not true. Factcheck.org. has posted multiple statements against that claim. OpenCongress.org gives information from both sides of the aisle yet summarized PL 3200 as: the major health care reform bill, signed into law …on March 23, 2010. It would expand health care coverage to 31 million currently uninsured Americans through a combination of cost controls, subsidies and mandates…”

I also trudged through the H.R. 3200 itself (govtrack.us) and through documents from the Office of the Actuary, the Congressional Budget Office, AARP Press Releases, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

No matter how often this myth is repeated, it is not true.

Paddy Kernisky

Keysville