Letters to the Editor: Democrats debated like they wanted to reelect Trump

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) participate in the first of two Democratic presidential candidate debates in Detroit this week.
(Paul Sancya / Associated Press)

To the editor: Republican advisor Scott Jennings could not be more right about how President Trump wound up winning the Democratic candidates’ debates this week.

The debaters were mostly a collection of dreamers who know very little about economics and propose spending tons of money on pipe dreams — money that a country with a $1-trillion annual federal budget deficit does not have. There were also blatantly unqualified people, like mayors and one-issue grievance bearers, on the stage.

Only a focused centrist who is an economic realist with a clear, unifying message for the country has any chance of defeating our reality TV president. The stakes could not be higher, but the Democrats’ present course assures Trump’s reelection.

Betty Turner, Sherman Oaks



To the editor: I love reading Jennings’ articles, because he consistently interprets things so incorrectly.

Jennings says the Democrats are now bashing President Obama’s legacy on healthcare. He believes the American healthcare system is Obamacare, when in reality Obamacare is only a small part of what we have today, and it has been severely crippled by our current president’s poisonous injections.

Most health economists would tell you that the United States has some of the world’s best hospitals and doctors, but it also has the industrialized world’s worst healthcare system.


For example, what is a hospital bill? Well, it depends — if you are uninsured it may be huge, but if you have one type of insurance it is likely to be smaller than if you had another policy. Or it could be covered fully. Or if you are impoverished, then there is perhaps no way the hospital will be paid anything.

Why exactly is Medicare not allowed to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies on prices? Explain that, Republicans.

Dr. Dave Haberman, Woodland Hills


To the editor: You have to hand it to Jennings for being so faithful to Republican Party talking points.

Yes, the Democratic hopefuls may have criticized Obamacare as it currently stands. But the fault is not Obama’s as much as it is Trump’s and the Republican Party’s. After a decade of obstructing and pillaging Obamacare, the system may not be functioning as intended.

What have Trump and the GOP proposed? That can be summed up as this: The uninsured and underinsured in America need to suck it up and start writing bigger checks for their healthcare.

That’s not a policy, it’s more like an obscenity directed at their constituents.


Carl Godlewski, Venice

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