Dear Editor:

This letter is in response to Dennis Brown's letter attacking Rep. Bruce MacDonald for urging the acceptance of Affordable Care Act monies.

For low income people in Maine it’s, sadly, the same old tired list of anti-government cliches.

Healthcare is far too important for cliches to take the place of reason and facts.

Here are a few facts:

Harvard University estimates 40,000 Americans lose their lives every year because of a lack of health insurance;

The U.S. has ranked for years in the bottom 29 to 34 percent of industrial nations having the worst rate of infant mortality;

The World Health Organization ranks the U.S. health system at 37th in the world. Mortality is somewhere around 50.

Maybe we don't spend enough money? Not really. We spend more money by thousands of dollars per person for health.

Our problem is simple. Every other civilized nation views healthcare as a right for its citizens. America views it as a profit center for drug and insurance companies and for-profit hospitals. Do we in the Boothbay region not see this? And the health industry spends billions per year on political lobbying to make sure it stays that way.

One final point: If we don't want government involved in healthcare, let 's do it right. Let's get rid of Medicare and Social Security. Do away with the NIH. And logically, we must ask, can we really depend upon the government to protect us? Maybe we should disband the Marines and the CIA; they are government agencies, you know.

Fred Rotondaro
Southport