Health Care in the U.S.

Thank you, Dr. Shapiro, for your truly illogical and ivory tower comments on health care.

I found your comment, “ . . . the loss of the trauma network is a blessing” quite unsavory. Further calling the disintegration of the trauma care system the “best thing” that ever happened to health care in Southern California, is righteously inhumane.

By bringing peripheral issues such as haves vs. have-nots, private-school parents, state prisons, tax rebates, etc., you have added more confusion rather than clarity to the health-care funding issue.

Your basic premise is logically erroneous. Because my 6-year-old son doesn’t know the dangers of fire, I should burn down our house to show him a lesson. Calling the collapse of the trauma-care system a “blessing” and “the best thing” seems to me making light of a very serious problem. It furthermore does not help the uninformed reader better understand the nature of the problem at hand in regards to health-care funding issues.

So please come down from your ivory tower and walk among those of us who work in the trenches of health care.

ROBERT A. BELTRAN, M.D.

Paramount