To the editor:

Mr. Starnes June 30 letter claims several matters that are misleading.

1. He says the Affordable Care Act was crafted in secrecy. That is false. Adding that it shares secrecy with the GOP Senate health bill is a false equivalency. GOP repeal efforts have had zero public hearings. The ACA was debated in three House and two Senate committees. The ACA proposals were made public at every stage of development.

2. Starnes is tarring me with the logical fallacy of guilt by association by implying that my views mirror those of U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi. They don’t.

3. Starnes claims that the ACA is imploding. Of the two components, Medicaid expansion and the other private insurance, the first is a success with 11.2 million new enrollees. The insurance part has had mixed results. Premiums in 2017 are up 22 percent. Young healthy people did not enroll in the numbers expected by insurance companies. About 12.2 million did enroll, which is not a sign of collapse. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that the marketplace would be stable in most areas. The Trump administration canceled advertising, withdrew enrollment enforcement and threatened to cease making payments to insurers. That has caused marketplace confusion and insurer withdrawal. None of this is an implosion, and the problems are fixable.