Letter to the editor: There’s a reason public health care came to exist in the United States

Fascinating: Linda Stanton wants to return to the 1950s. Which part of the '50s does Ms. Stanton regard so fondly - the limited opportunities for women? Jewish quotas at universities? Segregation and Jim Crow?

I doubt Ms. Stanton misses the top marginal tax rate of 91 percent and the huge public works project known as the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. No, Ms. Stanton is nostalgic for a time when people paid out of pocket for health care, a time of less expensive technology, fewer effective treatments and lower costs.

There was a reason Medicare and Medicaid were instituted during the Johnson administration - health care was becoming unaffordable for the elderly and their families.

Would Ms. Stanton prefer to have the elderly denied health care? She claims she wants the "truly needy" taken care of, but she disparages the government-run insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid. Paying out of pocket did not work in the '60s, and it would not work now, when health care can cost millions of dollars for an individual with cancer or heart disease.

Ms. Stanton displays incredible ignorance with her comment, "Obama's plan is to write me off after age 70…" The fact is, middle class elderly Americans have access to health care only because of government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the bulk of which pays for nursing home care, the disabled and children. Private, for-profit insurance companies would write off the elderly because they are not profitable; the real "death panels" can be found in private insurance, not public policies.

Joyce Denn - Woodbury

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion, updates