Re: “Governors eye co-pays to boost Medicaid costs” (BDN, July 16-17).

The statement, “This year, states and the federal government will spend about $329 billion on Medicaid, which serves about 53 million people,” blew my mind. At this ratio, Medicare could serve more than 53 million people, I’m sure.

How about the entire U.S. population? At $1 million each for medical care (the U.S. population was 294,393.924 as of Aug. 1, 2004), you could throw in pensions for all of the population and still have plenty left over for doing some actual good in the world (or, is this a mega-error which has to be corrected?) .

Deborah Marlowe

Liberty