Letter to the Editor
St. Petersburg Times
Friday, February 23, 2007
Our health care system is a national disgrace. We spend far too much money and get too little in return. John Podesta is absolutely right with his condemnation of our current system, but his proposed “fix” would just further complicate an already fragmented and overly complex system.
As a practicing family doctor in Clearwater, I see the increasing problems of our system every day. More of my patients have lost their insurance coverage and struggle to pay for even basic care. For the lucky ones who have coverage, insurers shift more cost to my patients, maintaining their profits while forcing people into difficult choices that can adversely affect their health.
The complex and onerous bureaucracy of our current system is the problem; having taxpayers pay for a carved out “Wellness Trust” just creates more of the administrative waste that already plagues our system. The American taxpayer already pays more than 65 percent of all health care spending in this country and takes on the disproportionate expense of caring for the oldest, the poorest and sickest patients.
The fundamental problem of our system is the enormously parasitic insurance industry that sucks billions of dollars out of our health care system every year, shuns the unhealthy and unwealthy. But what have we gotten in return? Substandard care compared to other nations, soaring costs, adversarial relationships with our providers, treatment and payment denials, “preauthorization” hassles and bureaucratic nightmares.
The problem with our system is for profit insurance companies. What we need is a single public trust to administer all health care in this country, not just for preventative care. That is why I, along with the over 14,000 doctors of the group, Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org), advocate an efficient “Medicare for All” program like HR 676, a bill recently re-introduced in Congress.
Numerous polls show that the American people overwhelmingly support such a program. Our only barrier is that we continue to “look the other way” while allowing a self-serving industry to waste over 30 percent of our health care dollars on its own overhead and profits. That wasted money is badly needed to cover the 47 million of us without any insurance, those of us with threadbare coverage and to guarantee that all Americans get needed medical care without the threat of financial ruin or bankruptcy that is rampant today.
Greg M. Silver, M.D.
Board of Directors, Physicians for a National Health Program
Palm Harbor