Letter: Thoughts on public medicine

Why is it that every time someone like Ben Ochart (“Boxer should be less like Lenin,” Mailbag, Oct. 23) complains about the federal budget crisis or the Affordable Care Act, the words of George Orwell come to mind?

His letter implies that Sen. Barbara Boxer is in favor of government shut-downs when she doesn’t get her way. She voted to end the shut-down; hardly the action of someone in favor of a shutdown. She also voted in favor of the Affordable Care Act, later upheld by the Supreme Court as constitutional.

This nation’s credit rating was downgraded as a result of actions taken by members of Congress who linked Affordable Care Act funding with the federal budget. It was childish folly.

I could respond to Ochart equating Boxer’s actions with the words of Lenin, but that would be non-productive.

I have a cousin living in England. He lost his wife to cancer and he has suffered two bouts of cancer himself. Not once have I heard him complain about the medical treatments he or his wife received.

When my wife and I visited him, we had our own encounter with the British medical system; she needing emergency care after cutting her hand. Nothing to complain about there, either.

I also have cousins living in Canada. When we talk politics, the question of medical coverage always come up. It ends the same way when I try to explain to the American system, with them saying, “When are you people going to grow up?”

Howard H. Gething
Montrose