Times Record
Letter to the Editor
09/02/2008
To the editor:
Cancer, like most serious illness, strikes unexpectedly. Did you notice that football great Gene Upshaw just died of pancreatic cancer three days after he fell ill?
Who will pay the bills when you are stricken? Which problems will your health insurance policy cover? With what limits?
How high will your out-of-pocket expenses be?
Millions of Americans are underinsured, and if you are unlucky, you may face bankruptcy on top of that sudden illness.
Costs are steadily increasing. But our less adequate coverage, in spite of personal cost increases, shows that competition among insurance companies dramatically fails to control costs.
Attend to these startling and well-understood facts about costs and coverage:
— Giving every citizen a Medicare card would cost less than current total expenses of about $2 trillion. Medicare comes with free choice of doctor, hospital and consultants, low out-of-pocket costs and you have it even if you lose your job.
Medicare for everyone costs less because administration at every level is cheaper. It’s cheaper because insurers don’t profit from your illness and because we would not pay chief executive officers seven-figure incomes. And we could finally get a handle on rising costs by planning and budgeting.
Yes, we might wait a little longer for that hip replacement or a tummy tuck.
Ask your Canadian friends what they prefer! Ask yourself why the citizens of every other developed country support their single-payer universal coverage systems.
Those who profit from the current system are powerful — and using your payments to lobby! It’s time we treated health care like police and schools.
Urge your candidates and representatives to support Medicare for everyone, or our personal expenses and worries will continue to increase.
Speak out!
Dr. William Clark
Woolwich, Maine