Mike Lawrence's column (In Focus, Jan. 1) on health care was fascinating but totally wrong in its content. Mr. Lawrence not only supports "Obamacare," which is a "budget breaker" and constitutionally flawed, he would have a single-payer system like the United Kingdom -- government owned and operated without any private insurance.

This is socialized medicine, which has been a real problem in Canada and the U.K. Thousands of Canadians come to the U.S. for treatment because of the delays and quality of treatment in their national system.

U.K.'s National Health Service patients wait an average of eight weeks for nonemergency treatments, two weeks for diagnostic tests and cannot always choose their specialists. I do not want a panel of doctors who don't know me telling me which treatments I should have. This should be a decision between me and my doctor.

Medicare is a single-payer system -- government owned and operated -- and is going broke. There is a bipartisan proposal (Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc.) to reform Medicare that would offer traditional government-run Medicare as an option along with a variety of private plans.

This proposal would require competition among private plans and a "premium support" system to help low-income Medicaid seniors. Government-owned and -operated systems simply do not work and are, for the most part, economic disasters.

Dick Hames, Richland