Opinion: U.S. healthcare will get worse without Obamacare. California needs to chart its own course.

To the editor: I’m a doctor, and I’m sick and tired. (“Senate Obamacare repeal bill would slash federal healthcare funding for Medicaid,” June 22)

Over the last six years, I have taught a course at the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine. During one of the modules of the course, the students present different countries’ medical systems and compare them to that of the United States. Every year we stare across the table at each other as the numbers come out.

Infant mortality? We lag behind Slovakia. Life expectancy? Every other first-world country (and Slovenia) does better while spending much less on healthcare per capita. So it seems pretty obvious, my students say year after year, that government managed, single-payer healthcare performs better. Yes, I say, but the political will is just not there yet.

This is the first year I hope to have a different answer for my students, even though the federal government appears to be going in the wrong direction on healthcare. I hope Gov. Jerry Brown supports the Healthy California Act and allows California to chart the path to a better healthcare system and become a model for the rest of the nation.

Alexander Rivkin, MD, Los Angeles

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To the editor: If anyone had any doubts about the Republicans’ motivation in their healthcare plan, they should not now: They now propose billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid to fund tax cuts for the wealthy.

They should also have no doubt about the cynicism of the party that drafted it all in secret, as the Medicaid cuts don’t begin until 2020, after the midterm election in 2018. There’s also the purely political appeal to the Republican base of including the ill-conceived Planned Parenthood funding cutoff.

I can only imagine the sinister smiles of those Republicans who met in secret to draft this dastardly proposal.

Ken Goldman, Beverly Hills

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To the editor: For years Congress has been consumed with repealing and replacing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act when in fact it doesn’t concern them personally all that much. They need to get more skin in the game.

Americans must demand that before lawmakers decide anything about our healthcare, they must first take away the healthcare benefits of all government employees. Repeal and replace if you want, but first repeal your own insurance.

I am sure many of our elected officials can afford to pay entirely for their own insurance. And if they can’t, I don’ t care — they don’t seem to care about me.

Alex Cole, Costa Mesa

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To the editor: If the Republicans pass this destructive, idiotic and overly mean healthcare bill, each state should have a “yuge” billboard that shows how many people are dying because they can’t afford Trumpcare.

And, no, Mr. President, Obamacare is not dead, although I know you want to kill it because of your hatred of the former president. You may go down in history as the worst president in U.S. history.

Robert Burns, Huntington Beach

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To the editor: The Democrats have been criticized for losing the presidential election due to the lack of a clear, effective message. In response to the current healthcare legislation being discussed, “it is mean” is not a productive message.

Wayne Muramatsu, Cerritos

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