Los Angeles Times
January 26, 2006
Re “Health Plan to Revive Debate,” Jan. 23
The problem with healthcare in the United States isn’t that Americans are over-insured ā as claimed by many conservatives ā but that private health insurers take up to 30% as administrative costs. Compare this with administrative costs of 2% for Medicare. America spends more on healthcare than any other country and doesn’t have results to show for it, as measured by leading health indicators as diverse as infant mortality and the number of uninsured people.
Healthcare is not a product that most people can compare and purchase, as one would a television or cellphone-service provider. Allowing people to save money from their personal health savings accounts by forgoing a clinic appointment, for example, will result in larger problems down the line, driving up costs and resulting in worse health outcomes.
Clearly, as people more knowledgeable than myself have proposed, the answer to the growing U.S. healthcare problem is universal single-payer coverage. The private insurance route is clearly not working. President Bush proposes more of the same.
Arman Afagh, MD
Riverside