Move toward single-payer health care
Following the course of the health care bills in Congress in recent weeks, it occurred to me that the draft dodgers who fled to Canada to avoid service in Vietnam and stayed to make a life there have better access to health care than the parents, brothers and sisters they left behind, and better even than those who stayed here and served in the U.S. military.
Also, Elian Gonzalez, the young boy who was sent back to his father in Cuba by Attorney General Janet Reno in 2000, has better access to health care than his cousins back in Florida.
It is a mystery to me why the richest country in the world doesn’t provide universal access to health care. It’s time to shore up the Affordable Care Act while transitioning to a single-payer health care system over the next few years.
This won’t be easy. Difficult decisions are not easy, but history rewards those who make them.
Martha L. McFadden
Washington