Medicare also at risk

Editor, The Times:

Why the debate now as to whether it is or is not constitutional for the government to require payment for health insurance? [“Tough questions in health-law cases,” page one, March 28.]

That is exactly what happens to every U.S. citizen who turns 65. The payment for basic Medicare is automatically deducted from your monthly Social Security check. Do you think you can buy your own insurance instead?

Think again. No company will insure you for health care after you are 65 unless you first have Medicare; that is what Medigap insurance does.

If the Supreme Court decides against the mandate for health insurance in so-called Obamacare, why wouldn’t Medicare be next?

— Jenny Garden, Seattle

Universal care is needed

I was beside myself first when the president refused to consider true universal health care, and then again when he refused to fight for the public option.

Obamacare is a minor improvement (better than doing nothing — if the Supreme Court decides to bless it), but it is little more than providing more Band-Aids for our national health-care train wreck.

Everyone I know is unsure whether they will receive the kind of medical care they actually need when they need it. Some have private insurance, some have Medicaid, for others its Medicare, and some have nothing at all. The current system is a health-care disaster.

Now this activist Supreme Court may override the president and Congress, barring even tiny improvements. It’s time for publicly funded universal health care — we need single-payer Medicare-for-all.

— Mike Smith, Seattle

Act is flawed

Regarding the Supreme Court’s consideration of the constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Act, it really doesn’t matter what the court decides in the end, as the act is so flawed.

We know that the AHC Act was written by the insurance companies for the insurance companies. It does not deal with the rising cost of health care and it increases under-insurance for just about everybody. Also, 23 million Americans will remain uninsured.

What we need is publicly funded universal health-care — which is not socialized medicine; it is publicly funded, privately delivered health-care. As a nurse, I spoke to a woman just today who can’t afford asthma medication for her child — he was coughing as we spoke — because her husband is out of work. The AHC will not change her situation.

It is outrageous and unacceptable that in one of the richest countries of the world, people go bankrupt because of inability to pay for their health care.

— Victoria Barbosa, Seattle