Editor:

The inability of Congress and the impotence of progressives and orthodox conservatives alike to craft a simple national health care package is by now obvious to everyone. We need a hard-nosed commission to draw up a universal affordable design with an up-or-down vote by Congress.

A nice approach would be to extend congressional health care to everyone and what is left out be dropped from Congress as well. I call this KISS, the Humphrey Bogart treatment, keep it simple sweetheart. We are all in this together.

Simplify, simplify, simplify, affordability, affordability, affordability. This is not rocket science. And we have the designs of nearly two dozen other modern national health care systems as precursors, so we know what to avoid for a vastly superior design.

ED WARSAW, Cape Cod, Mass.