The Wall Street Journal on Monday published several letters to the editor submitted in response to a recent opinion piece written by Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern that questioned the viability of the employer-based health care system in the U.S. Summaries appear below.

• Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.): Stern was "exactly right on the need for business leadership to push for health reform -- almost," Daschle writes. According to Daschle, "American businesses ... have been deafeningly silent on the broken health care system," but "business leaders aren't the only ones responsible for the bottom line that is eroding under the strain of health costs" -- shareholders and board members "need to take a stand as well" (Daschle, Wall Street Journal, 7/24).
  


• Grace-Marie Turner: "It was refreshing to read Andy Stern's acknowledgment" that the U.S. "cannot rely on employment-based health insurance for our increasingly-mobile 21st century workforce," Turner, president of the Galen Institute, writes. According to Turner, large employers, many of which "are being smothered by health costs," recently have called for "more government involvement, so the American taxpayer can bail them out, but "it's up to companies to figure out how they're going to get out of the mess they've created" (Turner, Wall Street Journal, 7/24).
  


• Mark White: "I was completely on board with Andy Stern's criticism" of the employer-based health care system "until he turned to universal coverage as the 'obvious' solution," Mark White, an associate professor of economics at the College of Staten Island, writes. According to White, the "rapid turnover of jobs for younger (and older) workers renders obsolete the practice of tying one's health coverage to one's employer," but the "solution is not more centralization, it's less" (White, Wall Street Journal, 7/24).