Dr  Schilling: Those who advocate replacing my country' s private health insurance system with  nationalized health insurance because of the rising costs of medical care fail to consider the high human costs that consumers pay in countries with nationalized insurance: access to high-technology medicine is restricted  Kidney transplants and open-heart surgery-familiar life-saving procedures are rationed  People are denied their right to treatments they want and need  Dr  Laforte: Your country' s reliance on private health insurance denies access even to basic, conventional medicine to the many people who cannot afford adequate health coverage
With nationalized insurance, rich and poor have equal access to life-saving medical procedures, and people' s right to decent medical treatment regardless of income is not violated
showing that the objections raised by Dr. Schilling have no bearing on the question of which of the two systems under consideration is the superior system