DR. WILLIAM R. ELSEA
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Letters
Dec. 23, 2008
The AJC editorial and Dr. Oliver Fein’s accompanying viewpoint on the broken health care system offer life-saving ideas (“Health care reform: We can’t afford to wait to fix this broken system” and “There is a cure available for current plan,” @issue, Dec. 14).
Most people don’t realize that all could be covered for what we’re now spending if we adopted a Medicare-for-All system, and that private administrative costs are about 10 times Medicare’s administrative costs. Many studies show superior health care results in countries with national care.
The AJC editorial says we might compromise by first covering all children, but that wouldn’t address critical needs for adult care, soaring costs or the problems of providing rational systems for distribution of resources for primary, mental health and trauma care. With a national payment and planning system, cures for these problems could be found.
The National Health Insurance Act (Medicare for All) would be a good start. Let’s get aboard with the 59 percent of surveyed physicians who favor something like it.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/printedition/2008/12/23/lettsed.html