Health Care

A letter writer (April 8) asked, “Will someone please tell me where it is written that health care is a right?” The answer, of course, is nowhere.

Neither do we have “a right” for safe bridges and overpasses, for healthy water supply and sewer treatment, or for basic education. Yet, as a democratic society, we decide on the most important services provided to all, and we entrust our elected officials to implement such decisions by levying taxes.

We should view health care the same way we view basic education. It is independent of income or of employment, of “pre-existing” conditions, or of other “risk factors.” No one is expected to have “education insurance,” and individuals are free to pay from their own pockets for private schools. Denigrating a universal health plan as “socialized medicine” is no different from referring to our school systems as “socialized education.” With both, we recognize that such programs are worth the initial investments, resulting in a better functioning society and lower payments in the future.

HANNA HILL

Tustin