By Nancy Greep, M.D.
Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2017
To the editor: This article overlooks the elephant in the room: private insurance companies that consume about 20% of every healthcare dollar.
Two additional reasons for our higher costs that are not mentioned are our failure to reduce drug prices through bulk purchasing and the low ratio of primary care providers to specialists. Primary care physicians decrease costs by coordinating care and providing preventive treatment.
If the government became our insurer, we could cover everyone at a lower cost and have better health outcomes. Thus, if Congress wants to replace Obamacare, it should develop a single-payer system, something that polls now show Americans increasingly support.