Pinkerton on Health System

* I’ve read James Pinkerton’s “There’s Something Worse Than HMOs” (Commentary, Aug. 13), and I still can’t for the life of me figure out exactly why he thinks government-guaranteed, universal national health insurance is worse than HMOs.

If it’s such a “proved failure,” why does every advanced industrial country except the United States have some form of it? And if his objection to national health insurance is “it works only for the nomenklatura who get to cut in front of the queue,” why would he propose a solution of “tax credits or vouchers that would empower all Americans . . . to seek out the best deal on health care, with or without an HMO,” which in practice would make one’s access to health care dependent on one’s skills as a businessman and a negotiator?

MARK GABRISH CONLAN

San Diego

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* Thanks for publishing the truth about the health insurance system. The facts are very clear: In excess of 90% of the members of the covered population are satisfied with their insurance. The single-payer government health systems of the world have proven to be dismal failures for their participants. This is the reason that people in European countries hate their government systems and are now looking to exit those systems to buy private health care insurance. They laugh at us when we discuss the possibility of voluntarily giving up our choices for big government.

There is truth to arguments that we need to do more to expand coverage to those who have none. Bashing the HMOs or going to some unreliable government system is simply not the way to achieve that goal.

JEFFREY MILES

Venice