Foreigners Using Medical Facilities

* Your article (“Foreign Visitors Put Strain on State’s Medical System,” Sept. 1) reveals the ludicrous situation a spend-happy Congress can create. The 1986 law regarding mandated treatment for illegal residents, which is now being tapped by visitors, is merely one glaring example.

A sad sidebar to this situation is that many taxpayers who fund Congress’ largess are themselves paying about $6,000 per year plus deductibles for their family health insurance. Worse, some taxpayers who cannot afford health insurance, when seeking health care for themselves, must pay cash, and often enough have accounts sent to collection and lose their assets.

Is it only in America that citizens can be reduced to poverty to support foreign freeloaders? I can hardly wait to see what new humanitarian ideas Congress has for us.

ROBERT W. KINGSTON

San Clemente

* I read with disgust your article. My 25-year-old sister fractured her arm and because she is a hair assistant (self-employed) with no medical insurance, she spent what little savings she had to get proper treatment. A month later and several hundred dollars gone, her arm still hurts and will not stretch out straight. She now has no money and cannot go back to work because of the pain. Her doctor suggested she see a specialist. Well, the specialist won’t even see her unless she pays $200 up front.

Because she cannot go back to work, has no savings left and is very close to losing her apartment because she cannot make the rent payment, she went to the welfare office. After filling out all of the paperwork a case worker told her that she did not qualify for assistance. She needed to have a child. Furthermore, for a person born and raised in Los Angeles to not be able to get assistance when in need is absolutely disgusting. It’s even more so when foreign-born people are getting fancy medical treatment such as new organs at my tax-dollar expense. No wonder there are so many homeless people in this country. We don’t even take care of our own first.

DARLENE BRADLEY

Pasadena

* What the city, county and state of California should do is send a bill to the foreign country that the foreign visitor or illegal alien has come from, and inform them that any foreign aid to that country would be reduced by the amount the foreign visitor or illegal alien has cost.

SAUL GOLDBERG

Los Angeles