In response to Dmitry Gerenrot's letter, I must say that one of the best things about the Clinton presidency was that he was not able to pass his health care plan. The proposed system was nothing more than a step toward complete socialization in this country, and it overlooked one simple fact: health care is a privilege, not a right.

It is a privilege of those who are productive and can earn the money necessary to pay for the health care they need. Why should doctors who spend years of their lives and large sums of money to learn their skills be enslaved to patients who offer their need alone as a mandate upon the providers of care? Why should the rest of us, through the inevitable increase in taxes, be forced to provide heath care for those that are not productive and cannot afford it? America has the best health care system in the country precisely because free-market capitalistic forces are able to work to provide the best health care at the lowest cost.

Without "excessive profits" of insurance and pharmaceutical companies, there would be no funding for vital research. It is rather ironic that in other countries that have socialized national health care, when an important leader of that country is critically ill, he is rushed to America for treatment or American-trained doctors are rushed to him. It is a testament to the fact that health care under a socialized system would do nothing but create increasingly sub-standard healthcare at increasing costs.