EDITOR,

I listened to Rep. Jerry McNerney’s town hall meeting on health care last Wednesday.

I must say I was disappointed in the vagueness and inaccuracy of his comments and responses. I was most displeased with his dismissive answers on the cost of a “public option.”

He stated that the public option would be revenue-neutral and would be funded by savings in Medicare and Medicaid. This position is beyond belief. How can you possibly provide 30 million people with public insurance and still have it not cost anything? There is just not enough savings from existing programs to fund expansion of the public rolls.

In truth, the health care bill clearly lists several new taxes to fund the program. But McNerney made no mention of these taxes in his town hall meeting. At best, he is ill-informed, at worst he is just dishonest.

What will happen is that the federal government will be financially unable to meet these obligations, just as it will be unable to meet its other unfunded obligations to Social Security and Medicare. The medical system will fundamentally become bankrupt. Doctors, hospitals and other health care professionals will go unpaid, and the system will eventually collapse.

The very wealthy will fly to other countries for their health care. The rest of us will have to make do with mediocrity. Even worse, our children and grandchildren will become saddled with enormous taxes to pay for all this.