Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

To the Editor:

Re: “Democrats Study New Ideas to Cut Health Plan Cost” (front page, June 19):

Discussion of the estimated costs of any proposed health care reform is misleading unless we also have an estimate of what it costs now to have so many millions uninsured or underinsured: unvaccinated children on playgrounds, people with untreated infectious diseases walking the streets (and on buses and subways), ill and untreated people unable to work (and pay taxes), mothers without prenatal care delivering low-birth-weight babies who require extensive care, and so forth.

Millions of citizens with inadequate health insurance create untold and expensive repercussions that affect all of us, not to mention the sheer immorality of letting our neighbors suffer pain.

Marcia Feingold
Ann Arbor, Mich., June 19, 2009

Note from KBJ: This is a perfect example of proving too much. The letter writer assumes, falsely, that "health care reform" (read "government-controlled health care") will solve the problems she mentions. Her argument supports coercion, not merely provision or access. Those who fail or refuse to vaccinate their children will be coerced into doing so. Those who don't have their infectious diseases treated will be coerced into doing so. Those who are unable to work because of untreated illness will be coerced into treatment. Those who are in danger of having low-birth-weight babies will be coerced into having prenatal care. This is not benevolent government. It is tyrannical government.