New York Times
Letter to the Editor
Nov. 5, 2009
To the Editor:
Nicholas D. Kristof reminds us of public health statistics that have been widely known to health professionals for years. We lag behind almost all other industrialized and developed countries in most measures of the health of our citizens.
Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, and his allies would have us believe we already have the best health system in the world. We do, provided you belong to a favored group: You’re rich and can afford to pay out of pocket, you’re over 65 like me and can’t be turned away by Medicare or you have a generous employer like Senator Shelby that subsidizes its employees so they can have “Cadillac” plans.
Meanwhile more than 46 million of our fellow citizens are uninsured. The best health care system the world has ever known?
We have forgotten our basic American value of looking out for one another. Would we support the idea of a fire or police department that provided help only to those who had a “Cadillac” protection plan? I don’t think so.
Only a health care system that provides each and every one of us with the care we need will be good enough. We need a single-payer, Medicare-for-all system.
Donald Broder
Studio City, Calif., Nov. 5, 2009
The writer is a retired medical doctor.
