I’m not quite sure what annoyed me most about Joel Allumbaugh’s column thanking Rep. Bruce Poliquin for his vote for the GOP’s health care reform package (”Maine Compass: We should be thanking Poliquin for health care vote,” May 9). His smugly superior attitude that ridiculed concern over the GOP plan certainly didn’t help his case. However, I think what ticked me off most was his attempt to sell the GOP plan in such concrete terms in a manner filled with certainty and self-assurance.

Allumbaugh — with emotive interjections such as “so why are alarm bells sounding?” and “the alarmists are screaming . . .how awful!” — would appear to try to convince us that only the most melodramatic among us would question the GOP plan. In fact, current and former chief medical officers of Medicare and Medicaid, the American Medical Association, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association American, American Osteopathic Association, the AARP and other associations all oppose the GOP plan. I see that as more significant than a bunch of screaming alarmists.

As for Allumbaugh’s rock-solid confidence in the performance of the GOP plan — well, no one knows exactly how the plan could possibly perform because the GOP forced the vote on the plan before the Congressional Budget Office study of the current plan was even concluded. As such, Allumbaugh is singing the praises of the GOP plan even before the results are in on its projected overall effectiveness. If you’d trust a doctor who decides to perform major surgery on you before he or she actually knows what to operate on, you’d probably trust Allumbaugh, too.

Many folks are questioning Poliquin’s vote, and rightly so. Poliquin needs to live with its consequences. Allumbaugh’s bloviating defense of Poliquin isn’t helping.

Mark Nordberg

Litchfield