I have enjoyed Deborah Welky’s features over the years, so I am surprised she didn’t do more research on her latest article, “Life’s Not Easy Today: Three Cheers For America’s Middle Class” (March 15).
Her installment extolling “some of the best healthcare in the world” is not accurate for many reasons.
I’m afraid as a person of considerable experience, having been a department head, technical director with 35 years of experience and finishing my career as an administrator on call, I would like to clear the air with a few statistics from the World Health Organization, which ranks the USA behind Cuba in infant mortality, and the USA as 26 out of 27 of the modern industrialized countries of the world. But what we are “first” in? The USA is the leader as having the most expensive healthcare in the world!
For those of us who live in Ms. Welky’s world, we are largely unaffected because we have the resources to cope, but for millions who live paycheck to paycheck, not so much!
Just a word about opioids and industry responsibility in the manufacture of such ever-increasing and addictive substances to increase profits and for no other reason.
Most of our goods, yes, cars included, are not made here but overseas. You know, places where corrupt governments are always looking for “loans” in exchange for establishing U.S. plants employing cheap labor, while we lose jobs. The wheels of progress are turning, but in China.
I’m so glad you mentioned access to education, as many can’t go to college because of skyrocketing tuition, and of late suspicious, if not fraudulent deals between college administrators and individuals.
I think it is ironic that many wealthy people recognize that the middle class does the heavy lifting, point at the poor as creators of debt, while using tax lawyers to avoid paying their fair share of taxes… and also recently receiving the highest tax refund in history. Is this a great country or what?
Richard Nielsen, Royal Palm Beach
