After picking up my jaw out of the cereal bowl, I decided Jon Baird’s take on Medicare (11/22, Letters, “Health reform a tragedy”) should not go unchallenged.
Mr. Baird, I don’t know anything about your family’s experiences with Medicare. Possibly they are financially able to not be burdened by health care costs. I am personally old enough to remember what seniors faced before Medicare came into being, including members of my own family.
I might point out one interesting statistic about health care in the United States. We rank behind most industrialized (and some developing) nations in health care outcomes, including life expectancy and infant mortality. We rank near the top if we consider the life expectancy of people who manage to reach age 65. Could it just be that access to decent medical care has something to do with that?
Medicare is not perfect by far, and certainly needs to be improved, but the extreme “I’ve got mine; go get your own” attitude such as Mr. Baird’s is inappropriate in any civilized society.
Ross Warnell
Smithville
Incidentally, Medicare DOES NOT save lives.
It is extremely expensive as well.
Basically a never ending cookie jar for deadbeats in government.
Posted by: NoMoreMrNiceGuy | November 29, 2009 at 11:14 AM
However we rank at the top in standard of living and opportunity.
Infant mortality is a skewed statistic due to how each country defines mortality.
They DO NOT "count" each infant that dies depending on their metric of accountability.
I wold suggest if those other nations are so great...MOVE!
Posted by: NoMoreMrNiceGuy | November 29, 2009 at 10:50 AM