On Christmas Eve 2009, my 90-year-old grandfather fell in a parking lot. The ambulance was called and, within minutes, he was brought to the hospital.

The next day at 7 a.m., he was being prepped for hip replacement surgery. After surgery, he went to rehabilitation in a step-down care center outside the city, where he was cared for by physical therapists and nurses. No one in the family was asking themselves how to pay for all this. Why?

Because this happened in France, a country with a single-payer system where everyone is guaranteed health care.

Dr. Chuck Radis (Maine Voices, July 28) is correct: Medicare for All is the only remedy. Being a medical student at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford, but having also resided in France, I have lived through both our private health care system and another country’s single-payer approach, and my biggest hope for the U.S. health care system is to move to Medicare for All.

As a medical student, I have heard enough times that a referral to see a dermatologist will take months, so I know that waiting happens in the U.S., too – it’s just more expensive and the outcomes, sadly, are often no better.

Frank Jackson

York

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