Health Insurance

The Kennedy-Kassebaum bill (Aug. 3) provides for portability of health insurance. This is a welcome step in the right direction. But slipped in there is the idea of medical savings accounts.

This Orwellian idea sounds good, but masks a terrible idea. It offers healthy people a chance to withdraw money from the insurance system. That money will not be there for others, nor for those healthy people when sickness strikes them. Insurance works when it is universal. Anything less is a sham. We need universal health insurance.

JANE HIRSCH

Pacific Palisades