Rep. Susan Morissette, R-Winslow, (Maine Compass, July 6) may know more about health care than I do. I hope the reforms she helped enact in Maine will do good.

She seems as much concerned to discredit the Affordable Care Act, however, as she does to make the case for reform in Maine.

Are Mainers’ health care issues really unique? Do no Mainers benefit from the ACA’s clause that prevents insurance companies from excluding those with pre-existing conditions. Or gain from the section allowing parents to keep children on their policies until age 26? Are no Mainers among those millions to whom coverage is extended?

Would Morissette and her party, for partisan advantage, deprive Mainers of access to health care exchanges?

Morissette posits a contrast between governmental coercion, and private sector freedom and choice. This is largely fanciful, especially in relation to health care.

My Medicare works, without interfering with my relationships with my doctors. The ACA is the product of failure by the private sector. Many ACA shortcomings are due to lobbying and other machinations by that sector.

Most Americans get their coverage from insurance companies just as bureaucratic as any federal agency, and with costs often quite higher.

Am I to be enthused by the idea of relying on corporate entities whose priority is the bottom line rather than my health, and concerning whose policies I have no input? At least I can vote for my elected officials who, I hope, can improve the ACA.

Morissette is an ideologue — as is a governor who irresponsibly calls the IRS a Gestapo.

Neither seems to appreciate concepts like the common good. Their appeal is to narrow self-concern. Their party should be voted out of office in November.

Ed McCarthy

Vienna