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To the editor:
The recent article, “H+H mental-health workers to get debt relief” (The Chief, July 29) highlights some of the many problems in our education and health care “systems.”
Public higher education has undergone so many budget cuts through both Democrat and Republican administrations at the federal and state levels that students have to assume tens of thousands of dollars of debt to get a college degree. Our nation certainly has the resources to make public higher education tuition-free for all.
Graduates like these mental health workers should not have to depend on private anonymous donors to get debt relief. Moreover, President Joe Biden has the power to cancel student debt with an executive order which to date he has not done, even in a partial manner.
The article also shows how we really do not have a health care “system.” When health care is put in the hands of profit-driven private corporations, we get the situation described in the article in which many hospitals do not provide mental-health services and many who need the service do not receive it in an adequate manner. One only has to walk the streets of our city to see that this is true.
We need a single-payer system or a national health service open to all that is dedicated to providing health care rather than generating profits.
Blair F. Bertaccini
Editor’s note: Mr. Bertaccini is a AFSCME retiree and former union local president in Connecticut.
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