When our Founding Fathers wrote the United States Constitution they wrote it using Biblical teaching which teaches that individuals should be self-reliant and not dependent on the government or others for their support.

To misconstrue the Declaration of Independence phrase of “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness …” as justification for the government to become the caretaker of its citizens is a mistake. In our Creator’s eyes we are all created equal at the time of birth. What happens after birth is the responsibility of the child’s father and mother until the child reaches the age of 18 in the United States.

What about those who are not able bodied? It is still the family’s responsibility to take care of the individual. In most cases the family will need help caring for the infirm and impaired without the help of the community. For those of us that are Christians we believe that it is an individual responsibility to help care for the poor and needy which includes the infirm and impaired.

When individuals start calling for a single-payer system of health insurance they immediately use comparisons that are unrealistic. To compare the United States with a population of 324.5 million with Canada at 36.6 million or Great Britain’s at 66.2 million or France’s at 66.9 million or Denmark’s at 5.7 million or Sweden’s at 9.9 million, is comical.

The U.S. has enough problems with Medicaid fraud and corruption alone that we do not need to add the problems of a single-payer system.

The United States’ average individual income tax rate is 39.6%. When you compare the United States’ average individual income tax rate to that of Canada’s at 33.3 percent or Great Britain’s at 45 percent or France’s at 50.2 percent Denmark’s at 55.8 percent or Sweden at 57.1 percent, you will easily see the tax rate for individuals in the U.S. must increase substantially to support a single payer system run by the government. From the above evidence and with the current nation debt of $20 trillion at 105.6 percent of the Gross Domestic Product you can easily imagine an average income tax rate of 60 percent for the U.S. to provide for a single-payer insurance system.

Since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies’ profits have increased or surged by 29 percent or more. The only way to stop the surging profits of health insurance companies is to repeal the ACA and return to a capitalist system of competition.

The implementation of a single-payer system is not the answer.

Ray Shamlin

Rocky Mount