Dear Readers: June 15, 2009--President Obama held a townhall meeting this week and also spoke to the American Medical Association promoting his proposal to create a government healthcare system that would compete against the private health insurance system. Sylvia Hampton, past president of Healthcare for All California, makes a passionate argument for a single-payer healthcare system. Medicare is a single-payer system, and advocates of single-payer seek to expand a Medicare-type program to cover more people. While there are variations in coverage, all would essentially create a government system to compete against--not replace--the private healthcare insurance system. Can we afford not to overhaul the healthcare system to help the millions who are uninsured or under-insured?