John McClaughry’s libertarian rant against Vermont’s future single-payer health care system (Rutland Herald, April 3) is out of touch with contemporary economic realities.
In McClaughry’s 1 percent fantasy, we don’t need universal, publicly funded health care because we can and should obtain private health care for ourselves. If we can’t afford it, too bad for us. In reality, most Vermonters, like most Americans, are in the other 99 percent. Vermont needs a universal, publicly funded health care system for the same reason Canada and most other industrialized countries need and already have single payer: to protect the lives of the citizens who make up that 99 percent.
MIMI MORTON
Guilford