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Killing health care to save it?

U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur’s plan would cost 23 million Americans their health insurance coverage and was rushed through before an independent analysis. That’s a strange way to save health care.

Killing health care to save it?

Rep. Tom MacArthur (R, N.J.) says he wants to "save health care before it implodes" ("MacArthur: I want to save healh care," Sunday). If so, he is choosing a strange way to do so. The bill he convinced his House colleagues to pass will strip health care from 23 million Americans while delivering nearly $1 trillion in tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. MacArthur conspired to rush the bill to a vote before independent analysts at the Congressional Budget Office could finish studying the brutal impact it would have on millions of Americans.

It looks like MacArthur is doing to health care what the United States did to villages during the Vietnam War - destroying health care to "save it."

|Matt Zencey, West Chester, mzencey@hotmail.com

MacArthur's plan is flawed

Rep. Tom MacArthur claims that his constituents aren't listening to him, that the backlash on health care is due to political vitriol.

We listened to what he had to say and we didn't like what we heard. Now, he is hearing from us.

MacArthur's personal loses, though unspeakably tragic, do not change the fact that his position on health care is wrongheaded and his arguments are absurd. He claims that preexisting conditions are protected in his amendment. Nonsense. First, states can allow insurers to opt out of these mandates, and what insurer, given permission to do so by a red state governor and legislature, will not? Second, the $138 billion for high-risk pools (over 10 years) is an overestimated amount and far below the $327 billion it is estimated that these high-risk pools will cost.

He further claims that there is no cut in Medicaid, but the bill will dump the cost on states, which will be forced to make massive cuts.

If the citizenry does not get involved, we may soon find that access to health care and women's reproductive rights are gone.

|Tom Yourison, coordinator, Indivisible West Jersey, Sewell, indivisiblewestjersey@gmail.com

Single-payer plan would work

I am a fiscal conservative who is concerned about the intergenerational bipartisan failure to offer a health-care plan that helps us be our brother's keeper ("The single-payer plan Trump should embrace," Sunday).

Inability to pay unconscionable medical bills is the leading cause of bankruptcy in America. The largest mental hospitals are prisons rather than treatment facilities. So, how can we compassionately address the needs of those who become sick, disabled, mentally ill, or are poor through no fault of their own?

Medicare for seniors guarantees basic benefits paid for by the government and enables the private market to offer different levels of coverage. The administrative costs of Medicare are cheaper than any other insurance provider. Providers love Medicare because Medicare pays its bills promptly.

The solution Democrats and Republicans will embrace is Medicare for All, modeled on what is provided to seniors. Medicare for All would decrease employer costs and empower American businesses to compete with every other country that provides universal coverage.

|Brewster Fay, Narberth, brewster.fay@gmail.com

GOP would never go for it

The idea of a conservative single-payer plan is a winner. The plan content has promise as well. POTUS Trump might even recognize that and wish to associate himself with its winningness. But House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will save him from moving toward a world-tested plan that doesn't suck up maximum riches for the insurance, medical, pharmaceutical complex.

|Don DeMarco, Philadelphia, donald.demarco@verizon.net

DNC bonuses unwarranted

Though the Democratic National Convention was in July 2016, the staffers were paid until May 2017 ("DNC staff earned bonuses," Monday). That is bonus enough for those people. As taxpayers, we should have a say in how our tax money is given out, not Philadelphia building trades business manager John Dougherty or former Gov. Ed Rendell.

|John Mikula, Philadelphia, jmikula19@gmail.com