To the Editor:

Mary L. Bowen ranted in her (8/9) letter to the editor that Obama is “deceptive,” speaks with a “silver” and “forked tongue,” is a “Pied Piper” — due to a semantic difference between “mandate” and “tax.” She forgets that Republicans first proposed the mandate/ tax.

Mitt Romney insisted on it for the Massachusetts health care plan. She stated that the Affordable Health Care Act is “unsolicited, unwanted,” that it will raise premiums, diminish the quality of life, and shorten life spans. Wow, what a doom and gloom prescription!

But Ms. Bowen doesn’t live in Massachusetts and I do. Mitt Romney’s health care plan is working out very well, thank you. Not only did the premiums stay fairly level, most everyone got a rebate check (when insurance companies contributed less than 80 percent of their revenue to direct health care.) Mine was $486.

Under incentives to reduce cost, hospitals are coordinating medical care. The uninsured’s reliance on Emergency Room visits — a cost borne by all of us — is way down, as most everyone is now covered with health insurance.

Change is scary, but this country can no longer afford the unsustainable rise in health care costs where insurance companies are rewarded for not providing services. Affordable preventative treatments keep down health care costs, strengthen the quality of an individual’s life, and lengthen life span. If Ms. Bowen is afraid that her health care options will be limited, I invite her to move to Massachusetts with arguably the best health care system in the nation.

I don’t particularly like our former governor, Mitt Romney, because he seems to say whatever he thinks his audiences want to hear, but most of us in Massachusetts approve of his signature health care legislation which serves as the basis for the Affordable Health Care Act.

Dr. Priscilla Cogan

PO Box 256, Leland