Universal health care is inevitable
Credit: Bloomberg
Thank you for Daniel Akst's short, readable and understandable column on why universal health care is coming ["Universal care is inevitable, and that's good," Opinion, May 30]. We need it, all of us, including people like myself and my wife who have health care. It is unacceptable that so many Americans are without health insurance.
Health insurance -- and health care -- can no longer be tied to employment. It is a patchwork, crazy-quilt system that does not work.
My 19-year-old son can now be covered under my wife's policy until 26. Shortly, no one will be dropped by an insurance company because of a "pre-existing conditions" (Anyone without a pre-existing condition please stand up!).
Tom Horan, Yaphank
For the last few decades, Social Security (including Medicare) has been the "third rail" of politics -- touch it and die. However, sane people recognize the system as now configured is unsustainable, and something must be done before it collapses.
Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) plan is a mean-spirited attempt to exploit that issue to return to the days of Charles Dickens' England (think "Oliver Twist"). However, I do have to give him a tremendous amount of credit for being the first politician to have the courage to take on a cause larger than himself, though it may well devour him.
The Democrats have been rightly pointing out how the Ryan plan scraps the entire Medicare system and favors the elites over everyone else. However, I feel that by simply being content to watch Ryan and a couple of ardent supporters self-immolate, the Democrats are losing the initiative. The Republicans are about to counter (correctly) that something must be done, and their plan is the only one around, leaving the Democrats sheepishly empty-handed.
The Democrats need to let Ryan take the heat while they put forth a plan of their own to tune up, not scrap, the present system.
One of these days I will need this Social Security and Medicare stuff. It would be nice if something is there for me.
Ed Gellender, Jericho
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
