It is truly shameful that Gov. Paul LePage vetoed legislation that could have extended health care insurance to thousands of Mainers. It is even more disappointing that Maine’s Republican lawmakers did not have the courage to override the veto.

By failing to extend MaineCare benefits at federal expense to 70,000 of Maine’s poorer citizens, Maine’s government is telling the people, “We can’t afford to improve the health care system.”

Among the world’s countries, the U.S. will continue to be in 37th place by commonly accepted measures of health care quality.

Those who cannot afford health insurance contribute most to the dismal health outcomes, by not seeking timely treatment for illnesses, by not obtaining adequate prenatal care, or not being able to afford important medications.

Is high quality health care only for the wealthy, the well-employed, and the very poor? What about those 70,000 people?

A second piece of legislation also vetoed for lack of foresight and, again, for lack of courage to override it, was a bill to “study” the feasibility of a single-payer, not-for-profit, system of universal health care — a system that will be needed in 2017 to replace ObamaCare when people realize how extraordinarily expensive and wasteful the system is. Allowing 20 percent to go for overhead with private insurers means billions of dollars, nationally, will be poured down the drain.

A system like Medicare can operate with a 5 percent overhead margin, allowing billions more to go for medical care, rather than to CEO salaries, shareholder profits, lobbyists and advertising. We need it.

John Sytsma, Farmington

EDITOR’S NOTE: In an email to the Sun Journal, received April 22, Sytsma apologized for factual errors in the latter part of his letter regarding LD 1345, a bill to initiate action toward establishing a single-payer health care financing system in Maine. The bill, in fact, was passed by both the Senate and House, but was not vetoed by the governor. It was simply set aside and not funded.