Paying for Health Care Reform

In response to the President’s budget call (Feb. 8) to pay for the health care reform package by raising the cigarette tax 99 cents per pack (I suspect a $1 hike would seem too high):

I make the modest proposal that President Clinton not limit his sights to the smoking vice, but consider raising taxes on the real culprits on the well-being of our country. Specifically, a tax could be levied on the fat, cholesterol and sodium contained in the foods we eat. This fat tax (let us say .01 cent per gram of fat, cholesterol and sodium) would not only raise enough money to pay for health care many times over, but also these subsequent increased costs of fatty foods (one of the leading contributors to heart disease, hypertension and stroke) may lead the Clintons of our nation out of the neighborhood fast-food restaurants and into the salad bar, thereby improving the overall health of everyone.

SIDNEY GOLD MD

Granada Hills

* Some of the comments about the Congressional Budget Office report on changing health expenditures and the health financing system are just plain foisting a “numbers game” on the public (Feb. 9). Clinton is the first to put on the table a plan that offers health care for all Americans by the year 2000 and at the same time reduces total health care expenditures. The Congressional Budget Office report supports that fact.

It also agrees that the Health Security Act “holds the promise of reducing the deficit in the long term.”

This act so far is the best on the table. Cancer patients and potential cancer patients are being devastated by illness. Let’s not play “numbers games” on them when they can least afford game playing. Let’s pass the act knowing it’s not without controversy and get on with creating a system that “betters our best.”

HELENE G. BROWN, Director

Community Applications of Research

Jonsson Cancer Center/UCLA

* When I watch C-SPAN, I really get a kick out of the members of both houses of Congress who rail about “employer mandates” when they discuss health care. What hypocrisy! These same members, along with their dependents and employees, get full health care free at the expense of their employer, the taxpayer.

Taxpayers/employers should pull the covers off Congress and demand that it adopt a single standard so both the taxpayer/employer and Congress pay the same for health care.

CARL A. GLORUD

La Habra

* During Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s confirmation hearings, we all learned of her strong convictions in favor of crime prevention, in particular, diversion programs, during her emotional testimony.

Yet, a review of programs eliminated in the new budget (Feb. 8) reveals that the largest program cut, and the only program cut totally in the Justice Department, is the Byrne Anti-Drug Abuse Formal Grant Program.

The Administration has apparently embraced intervention.

Even for a war protester President and a “caring” attorney general, the lure of clandestine raids, automatic weapons and high-tech Defense Department surplus is too hard to resist.

Add drug abuse to the increasingly long list of America’s social ills which are being institutionalized by government.

ALAN M. SCHWARTZ

Woodland Hills