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

To the Editor:

As illustrated in “Insured but Unprotected, and Driven Bankrupt by Health Crises” (front page, July 1), health insurance is often a meaningless product in that it offers neither health care nor security.

Actually, I don’t understand why America is still talking about providing all its people with health insurance, as opposed to providing them with health care. Health care is a necessity of life, like education and food.

For more than a century, through our public schools, we’ve been guaranteeing all Americans an education—not education insurance. For nearly half a century, our food stamp program has been providing Americans with food—not food insurance.

The financial ruin that “underinsured” people often find themselves in seems like a throwback to some Dickensian nightmare, not something that should be befalling Americans in the 21st century. Isn’t it time to recognize health care as a basic human need that a rich country like ours can afford to meet?

Vicki Riba Koestler
Alexandria, Va., July 1, 2009

Note from KBJ: Health care is a basic human need, but nothing of a normative nature follows from that fact. Each of us is responsible for his or her health. You're responsible for yours. I'm responsible for mine.