EDITOR,

Without screaming and yelling, let’s try and understand the current health care debate.

First, the facts:

• The real number is not 40 million persons without health care. The actual number is somewhere between 11 million and 13 million. This has been shown through examination of the U.S. Census documents. Unless you are counting people here illegally, between jobs and who make more than $75,000 and choose not to purchase coverage, the number is much smaller than that bantered about by politicians.

• Most Americans — 60 percent to 70 percent, depending on the survey — like their existing coverage and do not want to change it.

• Most seniors — 70 percent to 80 percent — like Medicare and feel that they were promised this coverage through lifetimes of compulsory payments into the system.

• Public health care costs have risen faster than private costs. This is true here and around the world. Please don’t tell me, Rep. Jerry McNerney, that you will pay for this through the elimination of “waste and fraud.” If that was the case, why aren’t you doing that right now? That is an insult to our intelligence.

• Despite the propaganda, most medical folks do not support either of the versions of the current health care legislation.

• The budget deficit is at a record $1.42 trillion. Our president said recently, at a $33,000-a-plate fundraiser, that “I’m just getting started!”

These are facts. They are neither Democrat nor Republican. The current health care legislation does not solve the basic issues we face and is too expensive.

Rather than blow up the current system, I believe we should solve it step by step. Tort reform has been shown by the Congressional Budget Office to be a step that would reduce the cost of health care. There are several states (Texas and Missouri) that have been successful with this.

Insurance and medical costs should also be tax deductible. Eliminate the 7.5 percent threshold for deductibility.

Make health insurance portable, not tied to employment. You never hear someone say that they lost their car insurance when they are laid off.

Allow health insurance to be sold across state lines — increase competition.

Finally, fix what is there first. Medicare is broke. Why would we want to establish another giant entitlement before fixing the ones we currently have?

These steps would lower health insurance costs without breaking the bank. Let’s take some of the low-hanging fruit first.