It astonishes me to hear people claim that a public health care plan would put a bureaucrat between them
and their doctors. I have that problem now. My insurance company decides what procedures will be paid
for, and to receive the maximum reimbursement my doctors have to be "in the network". When I
changed my insurance company I had to change my doctor.
Our current system is for-profit. If you stay healthy, you make money for the company and it wants your
business. Get seriously sick, and an army of company bureaucrats may try to avoid paying your bills and
think of ways to cancel your policy. A government-run single-payer system would mean that every doctor
is in the network. Insurance could not be canceled. Health care would be less expensive: Some insurance
company execs make multi-million dollar salaries and give our money to Congress to buy favors.
Companies who buy health insurance for their employees pass this cost on to the consumer. I’ve been told
that GM spends more money on health care than it does for steel. If the sticker price of a car included
the cost of buying health care for GM employees we would be aware of the real price of our current
health care system. Think about it-when you buy almost any product made in the USA you are paying for
someone else’s health care. American companies would be more competitive if they did not have to
shoulder the cost of health care.
Insurance company executives are spending money from your insurance premiums to convince you that their
system is better than non-profit health care. Don’t let them fool you. A single-payer system would be
less expensive, easier to use, and more secure than what we have now.
Debbie Dalke
Bowling Green