Medical Care for Poor

* Re “A Mission of Mercy to an Unlikely Place,” Dec. 15: Your article on poor pediatric care in the Redding, Calif., area really misses the point. The “experts” complain that Medi-Cal and doctor “brain drain” are the “root cause.” That’s nonsense. The root cause is people having children they are financially unprepared to take care of. I realize that it will probably be viewed by some in the politically correct crowd that reproductive rights are sacrosanct and personal responsibility be damned, but the resulting children pay the price.

In a perfect world, taxpayers and doctors would not be asked to pay for health care for noncontributing recipients. This isn’t a perfect world. The innocent children are certainly the losers here. But let’s put the blame where it belongs--on the people who recklessly bring these children into the world, not the taxpayers and not the doctors who can barely make a living trying to pay lawyers and provide services to nonpaying patients.

RON KATZ

Anaheim Hills