Opinion: Why are Republicans so happy to take away healthcare?

To the editor: President Trump and his fellow Republicans seem to be having such a good time seeing who can be the first and best to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. I wonder how they would feel with no health insurance. (“The hidden costs of replacing Obamacare,” Jan. 21)

Now, millions will likely lose their coverage, and there is little urgency among the Republicans to pass a replacement. What kind of people enjoy making their fellow citizens lose their medical insurance?

There’s a German word for deriving pleasure from someone else’s misery: schadenfreude.

Herman I. Morris, Plano, Texas

..

To the editor: While the Republicans set to work repealing the pernicious Affordable Care Act and its socialistic subsidy of the poor but undeserving, I suggest they get rid of another healthcare subsidy for those who, though perhaps not poor, are certainly even more undeserving.

That would be the $266 billion federal subsidy in 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office, for the moderately and highly paid employees of large corporations via payroll tax deductions for the companies and premiums paid pre-tax by the employees. Certainly healthcare subsidies shouldn’t go only to the well-off.

Gordon J . Louttit, Manhattan Beach

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook