To the editor:

There has been a lot of debate about government or private health care. There is a system that has millions of patients, better care, lower cost, the highest consumer satisfaction and the most advanced medical computerized system in the world. It’s the Veterans Affairs health care system.

Reasons include the computerized system that allows me to go to any VA hospital or clinic in America and a doctor can see my medical records, current prescriptions and primary care doctors. In private care, I found it hard to get doctors or hospitals to share test results and records. This led to too much waste and duplication of expensive treatments and tests. At a VA hospital, your wristband is a bar code and the nurses and the medicines are scanned before dispersing medication. This eliminates errors, which kill over 7,000 people a year. That’s just part of the 98,000 Americans a year killed in hospitals due to errors and needless procedures.

In my opinion, Obamacare didn’t go far enough. How much is wasted on insurance companies’ overhead and profit and the staff needed to deal with the paperwork for the insurers? One quarter of Americans have no health insurance. The No. 1 source of bankruptcy is medical bills. As a nation, we pay twice as much for care and rank way down the list in quality compared to other industrialized countries. There is a working example to cure our health care mess right in front of us and that is the VA system.

Ernie Fantini,

Lawrence