Sadly, continued efforts to emasculate or destroy the Affordable Care Act are being pursued by the Republicans, including Maine’s Rep. Bruce Poliquin.

Certainly there are problems with the ACA, but with political will and a sense of responsibility to the American people, they can be easily corrected.

Health care is a right, as every other Western nation has acknowledged, and not a privilege of the wealthy.

Before the ACA was enacted, more than 45 million Americans were without health insurance and, as a result, with very limited access to health care. As a result, about 45,000 Americans died yearly as a consequence (source, American Journal of Public Health, 2009).

Sadly, the United States, despite the rhetoric, does not have the best health care system in the world and, for the richest country in the world, that is unacceptable.

Stephen Sokol, Lewiston