Driven to lower taxes on the wealthy, Congress prepares to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Lowering what the Federal government spends on health care allows for lowering the taxes on the wealthy. Never mind that this will push costs onto already strained state budgets and drive more Americans into bankruptcy. The budget vultures are circling.

Americans have come to depend upon the good that the ACA has accomplished. The problems that remain are based on its being built upon our dysfunctional, for-profit insurance companies, with all their perverse incentives. (The less health care they pay for, the more profit they make. Because our lives can depend on health care, we pay their rising, exorbitant prices.)

Even with the ACA, we spend almost twice as much per person as other industrialized countries; at least one out of four of us are uninsured or under-insured; health care expenses cause the majority of bankruptcies; and we have poorer health outcomes. Repealing the ACA will take away the benefits and leave the problems.

So, repeal if you must, but make it better. Just as Medicare provides secure coverage for our seniors, it can work for us all.

Our medical industrial complex works very well for those at the top, but impoverishes the rest of us. Our medical industrial complex is as swampy and rigged as it gets. The mandate of this past election is to clean up the swamp/fix how things are rigged to work for the 1%. The majority of Americans support Medicare for all.

Medicare for all is what will work for all. Understand and demand.

Bill Semple

Boulder