I was sorry to see Susan Pelletier (Dec. 4) so ready to espouse the party line that defends the failed experiment of guaranteed issue and community rating in Maine’s individual insurance market, which should be replaced with the open market most of America has.

If risk pools are so bad, why did Rep. Tom Allen vote to provide federal funding for them? Why do 35 (a growing number) states have them?

If guaranteed issue and community rating are so awesome for consumers who want “affordable” health care, why do only five (a shrinking number) have them? Why are health insurance rates so much higher in those five states?

Why did academics from MIT, Brigham Young and Princeton find guaranteed issue and community rating raise rates by approximately 135 percent? Why did a nonpartisan study by the Maine Legislature find risk pools lower insurance rates?

Why do many consumers with risk pool policies in other states pay less than consumers in Maine’s regular insurance market? Guaranteed issue for individual policies are concepts which belong on the ash heap of failed ideas.

Bipartisan legislation from the U.S. Congress authorizes $1 million of funding to start any state risk pool. That’s because properly managed and funded risk pools work, and work extremely well.

No amount of incorrect information can change the facts.

Dave Spellman, Westbrook