Readers Write: April 11

Is health care really a right?

Many liberals believe health care is a right. Yet, many can go many years (some a lifetime) without it. I assume liberals believe it is a right because it allows life to continue or provides a better life. Try living a day without food or shelter.

If health care is a right, then certainly food and basic shelter are rights. All of these things are provided by work efforts of people.

Query who would provide the health care, food and shelter if everyone chose to simply take their basic rights and not work? Could robots be created to do it all, with an unlimited free energy source?

Time magazine ran an article in February titled “Why the Doctor Takes Only Cash.” It notes that providers who take only cash charge 20-40 percent of the insured costs of health care coverage. Perhaps that’s a clue as to where the health care debate should focus.

ALLEN BUCKLEY, ATLANTA

Isakson’s vote will hurt Georgian women

So, U.S. Sen. Isakson was finally able to get off the couch after his back surgeries (undoubtedly paid for by his generous health insurance) and appear in Congress to vote on a bill that results in defunding family planning clinics. Vice President Mike Pence tweeted he was glad to see Sen. Isakson back, “working for … the people of Georgia.” Well, except for the Georgian women who will not be able to get contraceptives, family planning counseling, breast and cervical cancer screening, and sexually transmitted disease prevention at a family planning clinic because now Georgia will be able to withhold funding from those clinics, decreasing their ability to serve the poor.

How ironic that, after missing 23 consecutive votes due to a health issue, Sen. Isakson “coincidentally” returned just in time to cast a critical vote on a health-care access bill whose passage will unfairly disadvantage so many of his constituents. For shame.

SUSAN SAMSON, FAYETTEVILLE