The political season is upon us and health care is one of the major issues. I am disappointed that neither side of the debate has adequately addressed one of the primary causes of the flawed system: reasonably good health insurance is only affordable if it is subsidized and such subsidies are denied to, I would estimate, about 15 percent of our fellow Americans.

As a Medicare insured, I pay roughly 20 percent of the cost of my insurance plan. The other 80 percent is paid by businesses and their employees through a payroll tax system. Without that subsidy, Medicare would be unaffordable to most seniors. Often, government employees have health insurance subsidized by federal, state and local taxes that most of us pay. Many businesses and other institutions provide health plans to their employees that are substantially subsidized by the company. Consumers provide much of the dollars that are the basis for this subsidy when they purchase goods and service from companies that offer such plans. Some of our neediest citizens obtain health insurance through Medicaid and similar plans that are financed through the tax systems.

Now, what about people who do not have access to such subsidized plans? Many small-business owners and their employees and their families, part-time and temporary workers, people between jobs, and others who have incomes above poverty will be asked to pay 100 percent of the cost of their health insurance. This, of course, makes any reasonable health insurance program unaffordable. Ironically, they also pay into the cost of subsidizing the health insurance the rest of us enjoy when they pay taxes and purchase goods and services.

I cannot think of a more patently unfair system. We need to fix this and not ask our uninsured and underinsured folks to pay way more than their fair share of the cost of our expensive health care system.

Charles Wright

Mount Vernon