Cutting Surtax on Medicare

Your editorial “Correction in Medicare Course” (April 25) continues to state The Times’ position that the catastrophic health care plan “is a good program . . . even for those paying the maximum surcharge.”

Many of us worked 30 to 40 years to earn our relatively small retirement pensions from the corporations for which we worked. One great thing that we got, as part of our retirement package, however, is a medical policy to give us critical health coverage in our declining years. Congress has now robbed us of that retirement benefit with expanded Medicare, and made the large corporations the beneficiaries of our misfortune.

My corporation and tens of thousands of others have been relieved of any financial responsibility for retirees’ health care, which has now been transferred to the individual. How in the world can The Times construe that as a “bargain” for anyone except the large corporations, whose savings are probably in the billions? Do The Times and the Democratic Party now support retroactive “windfall profits” for corporations at the expense of the individual senior citizen? I hope not!

ROBERT E. ANTLETZ

Lomita