GOP Tax, Medicare Plans

After reading about the House and Senate GOP tax plans (Oct. 14), I can see that they don’t understand the marriage penalty. My wife and I, with unexceptional but roughly equal incomes, paid $1,000 more 1994 federal income tax than if we had been “living in sin.”

The only way to eliminate the marriage penalty is to allow married people the option of filing separately at the single rates, rather than at the obscenely high “married filing separately” rates. California has done this. Why can’t the Feds?

RUSSELL STONE

Los Angeles

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I am very disturbed about the Senate Republicans’ proposed $500-per-child tax credit, although I would personally benefit from this change in the tax code. I don’t like the fact that this would send a message encouraging people to have more children. Given our current population growth, I think this is the wrong message to send. It also sends the more subtle message that people without children are not upholding “family values.”

Having a child is a personal choice. If one chooses to have a child one should also accept the financial responsibility for that child. There is already a tax exemption for each dependent. A child tax credit is totally unnecessary.

ELIZABETH ESTRADA

Mission Viejo

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Your excellent article on the House GOP plan to cut Medicare by $270 billion over seven years (“House Panels Approve GOP Plan to Overhaul Medicare,” Oct. 12) quoted Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.) saying “our proposal . . . expects sacrifice from everyone.”

Rep. Dunn’s statement is false. Under the GOP health care reform plan, which also includes a $181.6-billion cut in Medicaid, members of Congress are not expected to sacrifice any of their taxpayer-financed health benefits, which include:

* Free outpatient care at the Bethesda National Naval Medical Center and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

* Use of the office of the attending physician. For a mere $275 annual fee for House members and $520 for senators, members receive such benefits as unlimited office visits, laboratory work, X-rays, electrocardiograms and routine examinations.

* Taxpayer-subsidized health insurance. For $78 per month for an individual plan, or $208.55 for a family plan, members of Congress may receive health insurance benefits such as free heart, liver and lung transplants, free inpatient surgery and hospital visits, as well as free X-rays, laboratory work and free home health care. The taxpayer subsidy for these plans is $1,596 for the Beneficial Assn. of Capitol Employees “self-only” plan, and $3,489 for the BACE family plan.

It’s time for Dunn to take some of her own medicine. If there must be health care sacrifice, then members of Congress ought to sacrifice first and most.

GARY RUSKIN, Director

Congressional Accountability Project

Washington

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As a physician and Medicare provider, I am deeply disturbed by Rep Pete Stark’s (D-Hayward) comment, “stick it to the poor and help rich doctors,” with respect to the AMA’s endorsement of the GOP Medicare reform (Oct. 11). In my specialty of anesthesiology, Medicare reimburses approximately $56 per hour for my services. This nets about $30 per hour after subtracting malpractice insurance and office overhead.

Stark has failed to acknowledge that doctors have accepted a reduction in the Medicare fee schedule to help save a bankrupt system and at the same time preserve the quality of care rendered to Medicare recipients by physicians. Perhaps what Stark should have said is that Americans are tired of politicians who stick it to the poor taxpayer and help rich lawmakers run bankrupt entitlement programs.

EDWIN J. ROSMAN MD

Beverly Hills

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House Speaker Newt Gingrich says the GOP is “the party that wants to solve problems through the next generation.” Yeah, sure.

This is the party that is slashing or eliminating almost every long-range public-sector problem-solving activity of this society: non-defense scientific research, higher education assistance, toxic waste cleanup, family planning, infrastructure maintenance, energy conservation, gun control for a bit of domestic tranquillity, international arms control, drug rehab programs, public health protection, workplace safety, highway safety, school-to-work apprenticeship programs, Head Start programs for the youngest Americans and protection for endangered life forms and ecosystems older than some Republicans think the Earth is.

ROI used to mean return on investment. But in the 104th Congress it stands for Republicans Opposing Investment in our national future. The Republican millennium is shaping up as a GOPocalypse.

GREGORY WRIGHT

Sherman Oaks