Dear Editor,

Was Bret Callentine just trying to stir up controversy when he wrote about the U.S. health care system in the March 4 Observer? I can't believe he was really serious. If so, he certainly doesn't accept the principle that a nation's status is best judged by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens.

We do have the best medical technology and skillful doctors in the world. The problem is that you have to have the wealth of the Saudi royal family to afford them.

Health care should not properly be a business, it should be a service. Police and fire protection, primary and secondary education are services that are available to everyone. Everyone would suffer if this were not so. The same is true of access to health care. The whole country suffers when so many are excluded

The high cost of health care is making American businesses less competitive with foreign business which don't carry the burden of health care benefits. Approximately 40% of bankruptcies are brought on by medical bills. Emergency rooms are crowded because people without insurance have no other means of getting treatment. This is the most expensive way of giving them treatment, and doesn't allow for preventive
care.

The U.S. spends twice as much on health care as other developed countries, all of which provide universal medical coverage. When outcomes are measured our country is far down the list on longevity and high on the list of infant mortality, the two statistics which are usually used to measure the quality of care.

Government systems are not automatically more inefficient than large bureaucracies of the private sector. Medicare has administrative costs of a reasonable 12%. The administrative costs of private insurers is a whopping 25%. A quarter of their revenue goes down the hole of paper work, advertising, huge executive salaries and inefficiency. The senior population covered by Medicare has for a long time purchased supplemental coverage without the dire consequences predicted by Mr. Callentine. He doesn't, as a matter of fact, mention Medicare at all. If government management is as bad as he says Medicare would be a failure and should be eliminated. No politician seeking office would dare to suggest such a thing. It is too popular.

Medical care inevitably has to be limited in some way. We can't do everything for everybody. Wealth should not be the determinant of who gets the care. It should be of concern to Americans who have adequate health care that 45 millions of their fellow citizens do not. We would be a healthier, more prosperous, more just society is we were all provided with access to the health care we need.

Helen Brinich,

Lakewood