Greg Oerter’s last letter bothers me a lot because it is not factual.

Oerter wrote, “President Obama told us ObamaCare was urgent because employers were not hiring due to health care costs. Now they are not hiring, reducing jobs to part time, or laying off due to ObamaCare”

However, a Duke University survey in CFO Magazine found that 500 executives expect to boost full-time hiring by nearly 1.8 percent next year.

Oerter said, “Now Home Depot and many more are telling employees to get insurance from an Obama exchange”

Actually, Home Depot plans to end medical coverage for about 20,000 part-time employees and send them to exchanges, but they are maintaining coverage for full-time workers. Part-time employees will no longer be offered the limited medical coverage that did not meet the minimum requirements of the ACA, but the company will continue offering them coverage for dental, vision, critical illness, disability and back-up dependent care.

According to Oerter, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield is notifying customers their plan is no longer available “due to health care reform” laws.

While Oerter chose the words “their plan” he suggests that it covers all plans. It covers only certain existing individual and small group member plans that do not meet ACA requirements. Members impacted by the change have the option of moving to new Anthem plans that meet requirements.

Oerter said Linda Deright’s insurance company Regence of Washington State cancelled her policy of 15 years and she gets a 63 percent jump in rates.

But her policy was a PPO the company no longer offered. All insurance companies vary their policies from year to year. The article Oerter sites was written before the exchange even opened, so how could she say that she got a 63 percent jump in rates when no details were available yet.

“Obama said ObamaCare would cost $900 billion. It will cost at least twice that mount, probably more,” according to Oerter.

While any huge change will cost a lot to implement, the goal is to cut those costs down the line. ThedaCare is an excellent example of this. They have invested in computer systems and adopted a better practices approach to patient care: “We’ve reduced care costs by 25 percent and improved satisfaction to nearly 100 percent of patients rating their care 5 of 5.”

“The latest lie is that although our health care records will be open to the government, our privacy will be maintained,” Oerter said.

I can agree with him on this. It is a great concern and a risk that we take every day with computer systems.

“Now Obama exempted Congress and the White House staff from the ill effects of ObamaCare by giving them a 71 percent taxpayer subsidy when they buy insurance. Taxpayers are giving them $11,000 per family to get their insurance. These congressmen say ‘There is no subsidy. It’s an employer contribution.’”

Oerter’s comment is misleading and the congressmen are correct. Like many other employees, they get a contribution toward their insurance as part of their compensation.

Oerter apparently believes that we should keep the system we now have. He makes no suggestions as to how to cut costs and maintain customer satisfaction.

I’m no expert, but he needs to be more open minded and not just pick pieces out of articles.

Jean A. Spiegelberg

Neenah