Letters to the editor

Healthcare debate: We have moral duty to provide medical care to all

Posted on Tue, Dec 1, 2009 : 9:02 a.m.

We have a moral duty to take care of those in need. All religions and belief systems have such a connectedness and responsibility in their foundation.

Moral people who may not affiliate with religion, organized beliefs or groups that have similar values, should consider the social contract that most developed countries maintain for all its citizens. Many unaffiliated people do hold these values and actively work towards a more equitable distribution of medical care.

Our tools of war will no longer maintain our status in the world. How we treat the most vulnerable among us will be the measurement.

Enormous economic reasons loom for the USA to move to a single payer, which will level the trade playing field.

Personal obligation to all should be our bottom line regardless of the cost. However, I do believe that all businesses could stand to be relieved of the cost of medical benefits. As for those voices that decry the government bureaucracy as a weight on a medical system, they should consider the ultimate cost for medical care, the insurance bureaucracy which tyrannically seeks profits and the current quality of care in our country.

One way or another, we will all pay for medical care. It should be considered as a public safety issue, as are police and fire departments. That paradigm shift is important for the basis of good medical treatment for all.

Donna F. Roth Ann Arbor