No cut-rate solution to healthcare crisis

Re “Why pick on Wal-Mart?” editorial, March 2

I agree that forcing Wal-Mart to pay for medical care while other companies are not forced to do so is no way to solve America’s healthcare crisis. Probably the only sane solution to healthcare is to enforce a single-payer system through taxation, the same way that Medicare and Social Security are supported now. Any other way fails to ensure that all children, let alone all adults, will be covered.

No rational or just society, which the U.S. by no stretch of the historical imagination currently is, would fail to ensure that all citizens are adequately covered for healthcare.

As The Times indicates, to force some companies and not others to provide healthcare makes no rational sense. Forcing private companies to pay for healthcare is no rational solution to begin with, as such a system would fail to cover a minimum of 12% of the population (the unemployed plus their children). Regardless of what way is ultimately best to ensure healthcare coverage for every person within America’s borders, we will never be the “land of the free” or “the home of the brave” until such time as we adequately do.

RICHARD ABERDEEN

Nashville

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Pity poor Wal-Mart. Everybody picks on it. I’m tired of my tax dollars going for medical care for Wal-Mart employees who can’t afford the company-sponsored healthcare plan.

If Wal-Mart paid a livable wage, maybe its workers could afford the company plan.

MARTY TOROK

Apple Valley