Letters to the Editor: Sorry, rich people, you’ll pay more so we can have single payer

To the editor: When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton reportedly said, “Because that’s where the money is.” In order to have “Medicare for all,” or anything approaching a civilized healthcare system, we too will have to go where the money is. (“Can Elizabeth Warren afford to be all in on ‘Medicare for all’?” Oct. 24)

Long ago U.S. government painted itself into a corner by giving enormous tax breaks to the wealthy, and it lavished benefits on pharmaceutical companies. How is that working out for the rest of us?

They have not been paying their fair share for the common good, and it is now time to settle up. America cannot continue to be a country where the rich get richer and the rest of us get sick or go bankrupt.

Joseph Gius, Los Angeles

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To the editor: The article offers alternatives “for reducing the price tag” of Medicare for all by making benefits less generous or requiring people to pay in the form of deductibles or copayments.

This is not reducing the price tag. It’s either shifting the cost or forcing people to suffer by going without something that is often an existential imperative.

How about focusing on one big reason other developed countries manage to spend about half as much as a percentage of their economic output on healthcare as we do: Doctors in those countries, whether specialists or general practitioners, are paid on average about half as much as doctors in the United States.

Bill Seibel, Glendora