Health care empathy

Regarding Jonah Goldberg’s “Empathy in health care debate no match for rational thought” (Insight, May 7): “He was largely wrong on the facts: Babies with dire medical conditions are covered by their parents’ insurance, and when their parents are uninsured, doctors don’t just let the baby die on the table.” Of course they don’t. Doctors will go to extraordinary lengths to save a patient, as they should. But what about the bills?

If the parents are uninsured, they will receive astronomical medical bills for such extraordinary care, which can send them into bankruptcy and/or a lifetime of crippling debt. This is why the U.S. needs to join every other major country in the world in providing universal health care to its people. It is not a matter of “empathy for people who are like us,” it is a matter of being a civilized society.

Barbara Heroux, San Francisco

Medicare has shown success

Following the health care debate in Washington is not only enough to get you sick, but will also give you an appreciation for the fact that most Congressional Republicans suffer from a pre-existing condition consisting of a pathological obsession with the supposed efficacy of the free market to solve all problems and an utter contempt for people other than wealthy, white males.

The only known cure for this condition is for them to be voted out of office and given the opportunity to contemplate the sheer stupidity of their ideas on providing health care to the American people. Perhaps when that happens, the rest of us can finally have an intelligent discussion about instituting a health care system that works for everyone. In fact, we already have such a system, which is extremely popular and has a 50-year record of success, even as it covers the least healthy segment of the population in a cost effective way. It’s called Medicare. Peter Hanauer, Berkeley

Don’t punish the sick

Jonah Goldberg wrote a pseudo-scientific opinion piece about why we should not let the story about Jimmy Kimmel’s baby affect our rationality. Goldberg misses the whole point. Kimmel’s infant son was born with a health problem that will follow him for the rest of his life. Republicans would like to charge people with preexisting conditions more, perhaps prohibitively more, for their health care insurance. For example, Congressman Mo Brooks, R-Ala., puts the blame for preexisting conditions on the individual.

With his reasoning, children with heart defects such as Jimmy Kimmel’s son, or people with cystic fibrosis, Type 1 diabetes mellitus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, or numerous other diseases have only themselves to blame and deserve to pay higher insurance premiums. Empathy is an important emotion, for without it some of us do not have sympathy. Without sympathy, we have ignorant people passing health care legislation that punishes those who are ill through no fault of their own.

Robert Edelman, Oakland

GOP must build compassion

One of the most appalling aspects of the American Health Care Act is how it will treat our senior citizens facing nursing home stays. When my mother became afflicted with Alzheimer’s, we had to move her to a nursing home so she could obtain round the clock care. Mom was lucky in the sense that her money held out until she died in 2015. Yet, through my Mom’s illness we saw how Medicaid was the safety net for formerly middle-income people and that Medicaid was the primary support for 65 percent of nursing home residents. Now, if Trumpcare passes, Medicaid’s total pot would shrink by $880 billion by 2026 and older people who can’t afford assisted living or nursing homes will turn to their families for caregiving.

I’d like to see just one of those congressmen who voted for Trumpcare take on the job of family caregiver for one day. He would dress, change the diapers, lift the patient in and out of a wheelchair, clean the wounds, change the bedding, distribute medication, empty urine bags and cook special meals for the patient. Perhaps these caregiving duties would build compassion but if the congressman voted for the AHCA, probably not. Ellen Clark, Los Altos

Don’t forget midterm election

Regarding “House passes GOP’s health care legislation” (May 5): If you are marginalized by our health care system, and you voted for President Trump, next time you take little Billy to your pediatrician and you’re turned away because of a lack of insurance, remember the front page of The Chronicle.

Those joyous Republicans celebrating at the White House are delighted after voting to kick over 20 million of you off basic insurance plans, and transferring all the tax savings to the top 10 percent. These folks, who have spent most of their adult lives with great government plans, have forgotten why they were elected. Look at House Speaker Paul Ryan; he’s positively jubilant. Remember in 2018! Dan Fleming, Oakland

On the edge over health care

There is something lost on those smirking men in the White House Rose Garden photo with President Trump. While they are gloating at the possibility of billions in tax cuts for the wealthy while millions lose their health care coverage, a great many Americans will also lose their jobs. Trumpcare will slash hundreds of thousands of skilled jobs in the health care industry, including devastating rural communities where medical clinics didn’t exist before Obamacare. When people don’t spend as much disposable income on medical care, their family and local community benefits. It may be hard for the president to brag that he is a job creator when he sits on the edge of destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs in one fell swoop.

Kathi Pugh, Berkeley

‘Trumpedia’ and fake news

Regarding “China’s own Wikipedia, sans public editing” (Business, May 6): So the Chinese government will be using handpicked “scholars” to craft its own version of Wikipedia that can’t be changed by its citizens. This blatant form of censorship is akin to our White House’s elimination of scientific and LGBTQ information from its website. This administration ought to compile the “alternative facts” it has been expressing to the American public since inauguration day and its own Web version of reality, “Trumpedia.” Lisa Wang, Mountain View

Fair coverage on GOP’s plan?

Regarding “GOP health plan will be devastating” (Letters, May 6): Eight letters to the editor about the “devastating” GOP health plan, replete with viewer anger at the “rich, white men” in the White House photo. How amusing that just out of frame were women who also voted to pass the bill. Why don’t you show your readers the full face of the GOP?

Further, as one of those impacted by the implosion of the Affordable Care Act, with big increases in both premiums and deductibles, thank goodness here is a start on fixing this broken law. How about fair coverage?

Jennifer Segal, San Francisco