The Monitor ran a letter from Anne Josselyn ("An urgent need to fix health care," May 21) which claims that the budget passed by Congress will reform our health care system and get health care costs under control. In addition, the letter alleges that I am not working to provide affordable health care for all Americans. Both claims are inaccurate.

Simply stated, the Democratic budget spends $3.7 trillion in 2010, runs up deficits that average over a trillion dollars per year for the next 10 years, doubles the debt of our country in five years and triples it in 10 years, but does nothing to reform health care and control spending.

In fact, this budget significantly aggravates the cost of health care by adding more than $600 billion in new health care spending as a "down payment" for health care reform that experts believe will ultimately exceed $1.2 trillion in new spending in the health care area over 10 years. This is on top of the current cost of health care, which represents over 17 percent of the total economic production of our country, which according to the most recent data is nearly double the average for industrialized countries.

The issue is not that we are not spending enough on health care; it is that we are spending it ineffectively and wastefully.

Further, the Democratic budget created a specific loophole in the pay-as-you-go rules to allow this new spending to be un-offset and an add-on to the deficit over the next six years. This was totally irresponsible.

It should also be noted that the proposals that have been put forward to move to a public plan, or essentially a nationalization of health care in this country, will lead to a Washington bureaucrat being inserted between you and your doctor, long delays in delivery of care and the likelihood of rationing. This is not healthy for you or your health care provider.

Ms. Josselyn does have a point with which I agree: Solutions to solving our nation's health care crisis are needed.

I continue to be fully committed to working in a bipartisan way to make quality, affordable health insurance available to all Americans. We must not allow political bickering to deter us from finding real solutions. Therefore, I am a co-sponsor of the bipartisan Healthy Americans Act, which establishes a new consumer-focused, private, market-based health insurance system to ensure that all Americans, not already covered by Medicare or the U.S. military, have insurance.

The bill also provides incentives for preventive health care, wellness programs and disease management, as well as a stronger focus on health care cost containment measures.

In addition to this effort, as a senior member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, I am working with my colleagues, including Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, to find meaningful agreement on common-sense health care reform.

These reforms are aimed at making sure everyone in New Hampshire, and throughout our country, has insurance they can afford, is given the opportunity to choose their own doctor, and has access to a government health system that can't deny anyone access to care.

These are real and meaningful reforms that will go a long way toward solving our nation's health care crisis, making sure every American has access to health insurance, and doing all this in a way that doesn't put our nation's fiscal health on life support. But these critical reforms require thoughtful consideration, thorough debate and should not be pushed through in a reckless partisan way.

(Republican Judd Gregg is New Hampshire's senior U.S. senator.)