Mailbag:

Thank you for asking about the “In God We Trust” motto, which has been proposed for the Costa Mesa City Council Chambers, in Saturday’s Faith section (“The ‘In God’ motto and City Hall,” In Theory).

I, for one, thoroughly agree with Msgr. Davis’ comments. As a lifelong Catholic, I too believe in God, and that belief guides my life. However, plastering a verbal expression of that belief on public buildings or even my home does nothing to bring God’s unconditional love to our community.

Furthermore, I have seen very little evidence in the council’s decisions during recent years that they have been guided by any trust in God.

PAUL D. KELLY

COSTA MESA

A dark side to health care

Richard S. Stevens was indeed fortunate to receive a new heart and to live a full, enjoyable life (“Don’t fix health care if it isn’t broken,” Mailbag, Tuesday), but there is a dark side to our health-care system. I have Medicare and am often appalled at the paltry amount doctors receive. Our health-care system is terribly flawed when millions who do not have health insurance or have a high deductible are sick and dying long before their time.

I have a dear friend, age 33, who works full time but could not afford health insurance. She was seen by health care providers affiliated with Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and told, due to lack of health insurance, she would have to pay cash. When she was first seen, she had a 6-centimeter growth on her adrenal gland and was told she needed to find help as soon as possible. It took her three months to finally have surgery at UC Irvine to remove a now-9-centimeter malignant growth (softball size). There are only 300 cases of this rare form of cancer annually. Now, three weeks after surgery, she is fighting for a PET scan to see if the cancer has spread. She has been a resident of Newport Beach and employed in the city for many years.

You are living in a bubble, Stevens, if you think our health-care system is great. I invite you to come with me when I navigate poor women with breast cancer through the medical maze where women die before having the most basic of care. Oh, and by the way, I have been waiting for nearly two years for a young 34-year-old mother of three daughters to have an MRI.

Before I forget, you are dead wrong about Obama eliminating Medicare and killing off “useless” seniors. Perhaps the new heart you received 10 years ago was unfamiliar with “compassion.”

PAT SWAN

NEWPORT BEACH

Bipartisan fix needed for health care

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry upon reading your Aug. 5 article about the protest by health-care reform opponents at the Loretta Sanchez event at the Balboa Bay Club (“Locals decry health plan”). However, I think the article helped put the debate in stark relief.

You quote Megan Barth, the event organizer, as saying, “My biggest problem with the bill is the rationing of the health-care system . . . If there are too many people in the insurance system, then there will not be enough doctors to take care of them.”

Putting aside the obvious that uninsured people still use the health-care “system” but at much greater expense to taxpayers, and that insurance companies already “ration” health care, she has perhaps inadvertently summarized the attitude of the fringe protesters — on the one hand, she worries about rationing, but on the other, perfectly describes the ultimate rationing system: You get a doctor if you can afford insurance; otherwise, sorry!

I won’t go into the facts that we spend more on health care than any other developed country, and yet outcomes are not better. We taxpayers pick up the bill for the uninsured, and health-care costs continue to rise at many times the rate of inflation. Those facts have been covered, and in any event, facts seem to mean little to Barth and her friends.

A warning is in order. There are groups like Barth’s around the country that are attempting to prevent a debate on these crucial issues by using scare tactics and outright deception (or perhaps sometimes pure ignorance, as when a Texas protester complained that the government insurance option would be terrible as opposed to that wonderful private program, Medicare). I hope thoughtful Republicans will ignore that noise to work with the administration and congressional leadership on a plan that will begin to resolve this crucial issue.

ANDREW S. ROSE

NEWPORT BEACH