‘Clarifying a Controversy’

I cannot understand why you seem so perplexed at senior citizens’ outrage over the payment scheme for the catastrophic insurance changes to Medicare. We all support improved and expanded medical coverage in America, but we will not accept this new and unique tax to pay for a small portion of Medicare coverage. This scheme is right in there with the smoke-and-mirrors philosophy of our government in recent years, and it adds a new dimension to the hodgepodge dog’s dinner which our overall tax system has become.

If it survives, do you doubt there will not be widespread applications in the future, all just as inequitable. It also serves once again to load the costs primarily onto the middle-class citizen. If this is not a new and unique method of taxation, will you please point out any other federal tax which requires only the recipient to pay? I have asked my elected representatives as well as Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) and Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced) that question and they do not respond, I am sure because they do not want to admit the answer.

You have attempted several times to explain and clarify this issue, but you can only rationalize your support for this inequitable tax--you can’t clarify it into acceptability. It is simply unfair and you know it.

I don’t know what the solution is or what it will take to get this corrected but I intend to keep working to do just that, and I will not stop until it is. I will not support any office seeker or elected official who is not actively working for the same end. I hope you can finally see the same light. You should be just as outraged as we are.

RUDOLPH H. COOK

Granada Hills