Mailbag:

Regarding “Keep government out of the marketplace,” It’s a Gray Area, Aug. 16:

Dear Jim,

You missed the boat with your conclusion that the government should be kept out of the marketplace. I will remind you that our nation is suffering from its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression because our government was so blindly inactive in the world of capitalism. Ever since Ronald Reagan took over the reins of executive power, he, with congressional approval, began deregulating the major financial institutions — namely banks, insurance companies and the like — opening the door to widespread and unchecked corporate policies and practices that have crippled our country. The Clinton administration accelerated the potential for economic disasters with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.

It has always been in the best interest of the American people to have a government that monitors the marketplace against corporate abuses of power and policy — a government that makes decisions based on the needs of Main Street, not Wall Street. In such a system, congressional leaders and the president are not in the back pocket of corporate America. Presently, this is merely an audacious hope.

ELLIOTT ROBERT WILSON

Costa Mesa

Other nations show truth of health care

With polls showing that 83% of Americans like their current health care, there is no reason to have government-run health care. We just need to fix what we have! We have the best available, and that’s why people from all over the world come here for treatment.

Health insurance is expensive. There isn’t enough competition among health insurers, and they are conveniently exempt from anti-trust laws. In other words, they have a monopoly, thanks to lawmakers who get a lot of campaign donations from insurers.

Second, we need tort reform. With so many lawyers in Congress, this may not ever happen. Doctors pay exorbitant malpractice insurance premiums, which are passed on to the consumer.

Third, we need to be able to negotiate with big pharmaceutical companies to get drug costs down. Currently, that is forbidden in the Medicare drug program. Thank you, Congress.

Fourth, some kind of high-risk pool should be developed for people with catastrophic diseases so they can get health insurance.

No one should be forced to buy health insurance or have the government tell them what they will cover and what they won’t, or who gets certain treatments and who doesn’t.

Socialized medicine is failing in every country that it has been tried in. England’s will be bankrupt by 2015, and Canada’s will follow shortly. The horror stories I hear personally from friends and family who live in these countries is something I know I don’t want.

The U.S. Postal Service, Medicaid, Medicare, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are but a few of the entities run by the government, and they are all failures and running out of money. Don’t put your trust in the government to do anything efficiently. They have proven they don’t know how.

SHIRLEY CAMERON

Newport Beach