To the Editor:

Re “Does Anyone Really Love Private Insurance?,” by Rachel Madley (Op-Ed, Sept. 18):

Every time I hear TV pundits discussing how Americans will not want to give up their private insurance, I want to scream. I would happily give up my insurance in favor of a Medicare plan.

Almost every year my employer changes our plan because of rising costs, and each plan increases the premium, the deductible, the co-pays or all three. When I belonged to a union, at every contract negotiation we had to fight management over our insurance and often give up other benefits in order to keep a decent plan. Having a Medicare plan would have spared us a great deal of time, energy and stress.

My best friend from college was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as a teenager. After sizing up her options, after graduation she moved to Norway, where she had family, in order to take part in its socialized system, because of the difficulties that Ms. Madley describes.

This system is inhumane. It needs to change.

Donna Nicolino

Brooklyn

To the Editor:

I empathize with the author’s extreme frustration with the life-threatening delays and denials of private insurance and its maddening bureaucracy. I, too, wonder why so many are wedded to it. Medicare, however, is no panacea.