To the editor:

With the United States in 37th place on the list of nations that provide adequate health care to its citizens, health care reform opponents trot out the tired and false argument that national health care constitutes socialized medicine. Hmm, we provide a national highway system, national defense, national health care research and other government organized and funded services because it makes sense for a government of the people, by the people and for the people to do so. Why not our health care system?

When people say they don’t want the government overseeing their health care — well, who do you want running it? A Wall Street robber baron? Or our elected representatives? I’ll take the latter anytime. This is what House Resolution 676 will give to us, at a time when fewer and fewer employers provide insurance and an increasing number of Americans lack basic health care coverage.

Dot Nary,
Lawrence