LETTERS

Re “Free care and a reality check,” Aug. 12

Thousands of Americans desperate for healthcare flood the Forum in Inglewood. As an American, their plight makes me ashamed in the eyes of the world.

But those who should be ashamed -- the Republicans, the Blue Dog Democrats and the mindless screaming minority determined to disrupt the dialogue -- apparently have no shame. Nor do they seem to have compassion for their fellow Americans. The bottom line about the healthcare issue is very simple. Our elected representatives have the responsibility to follow the guiding principals of our Constitution: “Establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity ... [and] promote the general welfare.”

What is it about this they do not get?

Johanna Dordick

Los Angeles

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With all the screaming and yelling on the subject of healthcare in America, the photo on the front page of the Aug. 12 Times of Inglewood’s Forum filled with thousands of uninsured people desperate for medical attention says it all. This is a glimpse of what is to become the norm unless vast changes in healthcare reform aren’t made now. We already resemble a Third World country.

Our healthcare sure isn’t working, except for the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Frances Terrell Lippman

Sherman Oaks

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The sincere anger we are seeing at these town hall meetings is the product of fear: fear of “death panels,” abortion payments, rationed care, the government making medical decisions, and losing “our” country. These fears are brought to them by the same folks who gave us a war based on weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds.

The fear pipeline is flowing once again. I am not afraid. I want profit taken out of healthcare. Just look at all those people lined up at the Forum.

Arnie Moore

Sherman Oaks