Mailbag:

The per capita health-care expenditure in the U.S. is the highest in the world.

Yet we leave 46 million Americans uncovered and the rest of us with sub-standard results. The private sector cannot be allowed to handle this alone. We need a public component in order to force the private sector to compete.

My, my. What a novel idea in a country the prides itself on free enterprise. Let’s enact a health-care plan that includes the president’s three basic principles. Let’s do it now.

Richard Piper

Tustin

Liberals in power are ruining health care

The big-government takeover has to stop. Ever since liberals claimed power, it has been one bureaucratic scheme after another. Their newest target, health care, is the most dangerous intervention yet. Politicians, special interests and central planners should not come between patients and their doctors. We should not have to wait for Washington to tell us if we can have the treatment we need.

We shouldn’t have to wait in long lines because hospitals are overrun and doctors are in short supply.

But that is what could happen if the Obama/Pelosi health-care plan is allowed to go forward.

Patients must unite to make sure that our voice is part of the process, before we are forever silenced in the halls of power in Washington.

RONALD PAUL

Huntington Beach

Public option the answer for care

Should our cherished health-care system continue on its present trajectory, we will be the proud participants of yet another too-big-to-fail conundrum.

Only consolidation of the existing health-care industry providers can slow the leviathan we know as the health-insurance-premium-starved hounds. Their business model is flawed and they are acutely aware of this, yet they know of no other avenue to avert future diminished shareholder profits. They are locked in to a private health insurance industry paradigm that threatens to consume them during this weakening of our capitalist consumer economy.

They have proven in innumerable cases during the best of economic times that denying coverage and canceling policyholders was necessary to maintain their corporate profits. What must they now do to maintain corporate profits?

A robust public option is the answer. Private health insurance will thrive under the existence of a public option. They will carve out a niche that will ensure their profitability. For companies whose fortunes are squandered on unintelligent modeling, may their ashes provide the nutrients for smarter and more energetic companies.

After all, this is America in the 21st century. Inexperience is not on our résumé.

If we are the greatest country, then why are we having this debate over something so basic as health care? Are we not admonished throughout life to choose our battles wisely? Are we deathly afraid of making mistakes? Or is it something quite rudimentary like we simply like to fight?

The latter is true. A robust public option will ensure a legion of healthy soldiers. We are approaching the 1/100 point of this new millennium and of no doubt is our immediate shortage of healthy soldiers, and that can not portend good things ahead.

GLEN CATHERWOOD

Huntington Beach