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Re: David Patton's "Herbert's Medicaid alternative works for Utah," Opinion, March 8:
The governor's plan is nothing more than a thinly disguised windfall for health insurers, who have never shown any interest in poor people.
Instead of letting Medicaid administer it, Herbert assigns a middleman to take his "pound of flesh" before what's left dribbles down to the poor. This has the dirty fingerprints of insurance lobbyists all over it.
Herbert tosses a few bones to the "rabid right" with a work requirement and promise to squeeze a few premium dollars from anyone making the fabulous sum of $15,521 a year. Utah's poor continue to shiver in the cold shadow of "compassionate conservatism" while their leaders are comfortable with state-sponsored health care. What hypocrites.
Wayne Wagner
Park City