In response to Art Hall's editorial about a government controlled health care system reducing the level of care that the medical industry can provide for its patients: I shuddered in the same way that Dr. Altman shudders when an insurance company clerk denied my mother a medical apparatus that would have significantly reduced her suffering when she was dying. This was after she paid premiums to that company for 40+ years. If we have a two-tiered system like England where the wealthy can afford better health care, it's better than one where a portion of the population receives none.