How about a single-payer trigger?

To the editor:

The best solution to getting uninsured people covered and lowering costs is a full-tilt single payer system of publicly funded, privately delivered healthcare. Only the payment system is “government-run” (efficiently, by the way), not the medicine. There are no co-pays or deductibles. We keep our choice of doctor and doctors’ staff costs are reduced in chasing down payments from multiple insurers. Single payer will create the largest possible risk pool and the largest possible money pool to cover virtually everyone successfully without sandbagging the Treasury. That’s real insurance, and that’s what we need.

Insurance companies won’t disappear; they can sell luxury policies on private rooms and cosmetic or elective surgeries. They are business geniuses who will find all sorts of things to insure.

As your June 10 editorial noted, single payer health insurance is favored by a majority of Americans and a majority of doctors (despite a small band of detractors in the AMA who have been swimming upstream since they tried to nix Medicare in the 1960s). The main impediment to getting what we want is corruption of many in Congress by private health industry and drug company lobbyists. That’s an undemocratic situation that we the people can overcome if we have the will to play electoral hardball.

At the very least, we need a strong public option to compete with private plans and keep them honest. Co-ops will be inadequate, so don’t be buffaloed by them. Tell our representatives and senators if there’s no public option, vote the whole thing down. If legislation goes through anyway without a public option, tell them to consider building in a trigger for a “single payer sunrise” to come into effect in, say, three years, that would take effect if the current legislation fails to lower the number of uninsured, personal bankruptcies etc. (specify hallmarks). That will be a real “morning in America.”

A $10,000 health care whistle stop

To the editor:

Please call your elected officials and ask them to support health care reform. I favor a public health care option with extensive research on cost controls.

Many people seem remarkably complacent about the current state of health care costs in the United States. I can only assume that these people have been blessed with never having to pay any major costs.

I had chest pains while traveling on a train to New York City a few years ago. I told the conductor, who happened to be an EMT. He made me get off the train at the next stop, where he had called an ambulance to meet me. I was taken to a hospital in an unfamiliar town in New Jersey.

The one night I spent there, including the tests run, cost my insurer $10,000. It probably would have cost more if I had had to pay for it myself out of pocket—insurance companies can negotiate reduced fees that the individual cannot. And I insisted on leaving because I had responsibilities; the hospital wanted to keep me there and run more tests.

My insurance only paid hospital costs, not the $600 for the emergency room physician or the $600 for the ambulance. Or the stress test I eventually had done as an outpatient. Or the barium swallow ordered when it turned out I did not have heart problems. An endoscopy was recommended; that would have cost me thousands more out of pocket, so I went without.

I had a minimal policy—what if I had had none? How many working people can absorb a sudden expense of $10,000 plus? Believe me, if I had had heart disease or cancer, it would have been far more.

Education needed on health care reform

To the editor:

There is too much misinformation about health care reform proposals. We must educate ourselves and then pressure our senators and representatives to vote for reform.

1) A single-payer system (although many believe it would be best) is not being discussed. All current proposals build on our current system of health care. Fear mongers say that a single payer system would lead to “socialized” medicine, but that is not part of the plan. A mixed public and private plan is the uniquely American proposal that is under consideration.

2) This health reform will help every American. Obviously, the uninsured will be helped. But just because you have health insurance today doesn’t mean you’ll have it tomorrow. You can lose a job or your company can drop your coverage. Premiums have risen eight times faster than income in recent history. Insurance company profits have risen. Even the insured find themselves cutting corners and doing without. We deserve better.

3) The boomers are not to blame for the high cost of health care in the United States. Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, tells us that the growing ranks of the elderly account for only four percent of future growth in costs. He and others place the blame on our “fee-for-service” payment system. Doctors are paid for how many patients they see and the number of treatments they prescribe. This encourages over-treatment and over-use of high-tech machines. Don’t forget insurance company profits when talking about health care. Change the system; costs come down.

4) The Commonwealth Fund estimates that health care reform will cost roughly $600 billion to implement, but by 2020 will save about $3 trillion.

5) Health care reform will give us more options—including keeping the doctor we have.

Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, says “the most expensive thing we can do is nothing at all.”

We are far behind other countries. We deserve better. Tell your representatives in Washington to act now.

Carole Orleman
Lackawaxen, PA
Pain for the taxpayers

Governor Rendell warned us that his upcoming budget would be painful, but it looks like all of the pain is falling on the taxpayers. Just this week, our governor announced a plan to raise the personal tax by a staggering 16 percent. This idea comes from the same budget that will increase our government spending and cost our commonwealth thousands of jobs.

A dedication to Neda

Although my ‘79 concerns came from beneath the khimar [veil]

Until the hardliners gave him the plank and evil fist of Captain Hook!

But in dismay I watched repression slowly seep right in

But Khomeini twisted minds his way

In these modern days, often I ask,

Do these hardliners ever really pray,

If so, to whom or does mind control

dictate hearts of decay?

Were the Prophet and his wife here today

Maiming, murder or torture can’t be in this century’s new life

Religious zealots

It’s time you dethrone

He decreed: “respect the women, their rights”

But their voices outcry, “Our gender’s still oppressed”

That tolerance for change works best, respecting our differences in harmony

Glory and hallelujah, let our freedom ring.