Medicare Vouchers

Re “Don’t Voucherize Medicare,” by Robert Kuttner, Commentary, Jan. 17: Everyone agrees that a diminishing number of taxpayers and an increasing number of recipients, at some point, require a remedy. The options are: 1) Keep benefits the same and increase taxes, 2) decrease benefits in the face of reduced income or 3) a combination of the first two. Kuttner acknowledges the affluent will have superior coverage to the poor, regardless of the benefit delivery system. Therefore, the crux of the question is, “Will the voucher buy more, less or the same coverage as the current benefit package?”

A voucher need not represent less than the current plan unless Congress chooses to do this. Medicare could be gutted by imposing higher deductibles and reduced coverage in the absence of vouchers. If vouchers reduce the number of government employees involved with the health care system, they merit serious consideration. A voucher program, per se, is not the issue; funding the benefits package is the issue. My guess is that the gutless politicians want to disguise a Medicare benefit reduction by changing the name of the program.

DONALD J. PRADO

Valencia

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Kuttner has alerted us that the Medicare advisory committee will probably recommend voucherizing Medicare. This would completely gut Medicare as we know it, greatly jeopardize the health of the poor and middle-class elderly and place a huge financial burden on them and their children. Kuttner wonders when some liberals will “step up to the plate.” Well, chances of that happening are very slim, since it seems that Washington liberals have developed a terminal case of lockjaw when it comes to defending their basic principles. The real Democratic Party no longer exists!

TERRY L. MALONE

Anaheim