HEALTH CARE

When I was a sophomore in high school, lo 43 years ago (or more), our English teacher, Mr. Gary Udd, had us read a short story and discuss it.

The name of the story was “The Lottery.” The story starts with a festival and does a good job of getting the reader excited about the upcoming event by including small conversations among various participants and describing all we know about rodeos and county fairs and carnivals.

Well-written, the story pulls the reader into the excitement of whatever this lottery thing was all about.

The conversations were from the viewpoint of all ages from young to old, but the lottery is only for a select few, and congratulations were heartily given to those select few — the elders of the township.  As a young person, we were being led to be envious of the older generation getting all this opportunity and maybe some of us wondered why it was only available to a chosen few citizens.  The younger conversationalists were encouraged that their turn would come.

It wasn’t until the end of the short story that the reader was introduced to what the “prize” in the lottery was — entire families were selected were killed for the benefit of the town.

In 1965, it was hard to imagine that such a thing could ever take place.  It was harder still to conceive that it would ever take place in a nation as wonderful as the United States of America.

I leave it to the reader to decide how far down the road we have traveled and how close we are coming.

Nothing about the healthcare plan is logical, ethical, or moral.  Reject the healthcare plan.

Mary Seaman

Soap Lake