Harvey Fernbach, MD
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
June 19, 2008
While I welcome the heightened attention of policymakers, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, to our failing health-care system [Business, June 17], I was struck by how few real “prescriptions for change” emerged from the Senate Finance Committee’s health reform “summit” Monday.
All of the reforms mentioned, including what is being offered by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), keep the for-profit private insurance industry at the center of our system — and yet that industry is the main problem.
Private insurers profit by enrolling the healthy, screening out the sick and denying claims. They burden us with wasteful administrative costs, including outlandish executive salaries. We simply can’t afford this fragmented, inefficient system anymore.
What’s needed is an orderly transition to national health insurance, the kind of social insurance that most other industrialized nations take for granted. This “single-payer” approach has a track record of delivering better-quality care at lower cost. People end up living longer and are healthier. They go to the doctors of their choice, and everyone, without exception, has access to comprehensive care.
We need to get at the root of the problem and not be afraid to challenge the status quo.
Harvey Fernbach, MD
College Park
The writer is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program.