Placing the Blame for Slow Medical Care for the Poor

The Times ended an editorial (July 5) about UCI Medical Center with: “Why should poor patients have to wait so long for the same treatment?”

You ask a good question, but of the wrong people. On the matter of health, we are nationally skewed against the poor and those who sustain catastrophic injury and illness losses. This is one facet of a matter that millions lacking organizational or other clout have been asking the federal government about for years.

In recent years, the only evidence of even casual understanding of the problem has been when (President Reagan) unctuously declared a desire that people not fall through the safety net.

By leaving the nation overburdened with legislated and white-collar-crime debt, that Administration will be remembered as the one that did more than any other to delay the time any serious attention to a safety net will be possible.

WILLARD HANZLIK

Seal Beach