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Independence, MO —
To the editor:
In response to “Nixon urges Medicaid expansion” in last Thursday’s Examiner:
It is time. This is the right thing to do. In the end, the U.S. needs to establish a national, government-financed single-payer health-care insurance plan such as H.R. 676. As long as the private, for-profit health-care insurance industry is involved in financing our health care, all Americans will pay too much for health care.
H.R. 676 would pool all of the current revenues (private insurance premiums, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs, etc.) into a single insurance plan. It would be one large risk pool and everyone would pay their fair share based on ability to pay. The insurance plan would cover every American from the womb to the tomb.
Businesses would benefit as they would no longer be burdened with providing their employees and families with health-care benefits. This would improve their bottom line. Employees would benefit as they would no longer have the health-care insurance premiums coming out of their paychecks. Yes, the Medicare tax would have to be increased, but not by as much as the premiums were. Everyone would have more cash in their pockets.
Some conservatives scream and holler “socialized medicine,” but they have no answer for our escalating health-care costs. In reality, we have many “socialized” services. Our economy has a mixture of socialism and capitalism. Some aspects of our economy are just not well suited for capitalism and health care is one of them.
Americans pay about twice as much for health care (per capita) as citizens of any other developed nation. The U.S. ranks from somewhere in the middle to the bottom in many important health-care outcomes. There is a reason for these facts, and it is primarily the for-profit health-care insurance industry.
To the editor:
In response to “Nixon urges Medicaid expansion” in last Thursday’s Examiner:
It is time. This is the right thing to do. In the end, the U.S. needs to establish a national, government-financed single-payer health-care insurance plan such as H.R. 676. As long as the private, for-profit health-care insurance industry is involved in financing our health care, all Americans will pay too much for health care.
H.R. 676 would pool all of the current revenues (private insurance premiums, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs, etc.) into a single insurance plan. It would be one large risk pool and everyone would pay their fair share based on ability to pay. The insurance plan would cover every American from the womb to the tomb.
Businesses would benefit as they would no longer be burdened with providing their employees and families with health-care benefits. This would improve their bottom line. Employees would benefit as they would no longer have the health-care insurance premiums coming out of their paychecks. Yes, the Medicare tax would have to be increased, but not by as much as the premiums were. Everyone would have more cash in their pockets.
Some conservatives scream and holler “socialized medicine,” but they have no answer for our escalating health-care costs. In reality, we have many “socialized” services. Our economy has a mixture of socialism and capitalism. Some aspects of our economy are just not well suited for capitalism and health care is one of them.
Americans pay about twice as much for health care (per capita) as citizens of any other developed nation. The U.S. ranks from somewhere in the middle to the bottom in many important health-care outcomes. There is a reason for these facts, and it is primarily the for-profit health-care insurance industry.
