To the editor,

New Hampshire is a beautiful state. I was fortunate that my parents owned a summer home there on a lake. Nice people there, up-front and to the point in their conversation – good New Englanders. However, the letter in regards to health care in this country from the gentleman from New Hampshire was off the mark by a long shot. Perhaps he doesn’t hang out with the people I know and care about who have not only lost their jobs but lost health insurance, who are frozen with fear for their families or themselves getting ill.

I have lived in a European country with universal health care, and that burden is off the population’s back; neither rich nor poor have to worry about the financial responsibility that could ruin their lives without health care, as it is doing in this country.

Back to the story about my parents’ home in New Hampshire, a lovely 18th century renovated by my father who loved that place. Unfortunately, he died rather young and before Medicare; my mother got very ill and went to Boston for treatment and surgery. She did not have good insurance. So the house in New Hampshire was sold to pay the bill of thousands of dollars. Enter Medicare in the 1960s; mother is getting older and was in the hospital in Miami. And guess what? Her medical bill was paid for by the Medicare system!

What a wonderful thing it was. This is the kind of joy and relief from health care burdens we all should have, each and everyone of us in the richest nation on this earth.

Shame on those who would deny that from its citizens.

Jay Halcrow

Sanibel and Sarasota, Fla.