Re Letter to the Editor, “Medicaid expansion is a moral imperative,” Free Press April 19-21 edition:

Delegate Lamont Bagby’s letter to the editor drew upon a misunderstanding of the term moral. The expansion of Medicaid, in fact Medicaid itself, is not a “moral imperative.” It is a legal action designed to plunder from taxpayers a portion of the rewards they received for their labor and redistribute it to others.

If the transfer of funds to help others, i.e., charitable giving, were done voluntarily, then it would be a moral action by people who, of their own accord, feel compassion for and a desire to help their fellow citizens. 

To think, however, that the government plundering citizens’ wealth to redistribute the collected assets to citizens in need is moral is absurd. Using that logic, why not just have the government tax income at 100 percent and redistribute it “fairly” and we would be a truly “moral’ society? 

I am not questioning the need and the willingness to address others’ misfortune. But it should be done through the voluntary efforts of the people and organizations who can truly feel a moral obligation to help others, and not the government who, in fact, cannot be moral or immoral and has no money of it own, least of all to be charitable with.

WILLIAM RYAN

Midlothian