Richard Roberts, in his My Turn, “Unaffordable care act,” on Aug., is way off base. Universal health care in the U.S. is way past due. We are the only major country without universal health care, and many minor countries also provide universal health care.

If the U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world, why cannot we provide health care for all of our citizens? Health care is a right, not a privilege. The U.S. has the most expensive health care and certainly not the best. Universal health care would be the better way to provide health care to all our citizens and more cost effective.

The Affordable Care Act was a beginning to expand health care coverage. Its problems could have been fixed, but the GOP obstructionists have refused to do so, and now this administration is doing everything in its power to kill it by causing confusion in the insurance market and refusing payments to the providers. The ACA was not in a spiral to its death.

Mr. Roberts’ assertion about people making bad decisions in the area of health care is false, too, because of the economic picture in this country. The wealthy at the top of the pile have gotten richer, while everyone else has gotten poorer. Wages today for those at the bottom of the pile no longer provide support for families, let alone leaving enough money for expensive health care.

Universal health care would better enable the U.S. to remain a major nation and not fall into the status of a third world nation.

— Pat Bullard

China Grove