It's much more expensive to keep people away from health care

To The Daily Sun,

There are so many complex issues making me sad and scared for myself, my family, my beloved community, my great country, and this precious earth, our shared home. But one U.S. issue that has a fairly simple solution that I think all can — conservative, liberal, libertarian, green, or apolitical — is health care.

Currently we spend more per person, as well as a percentage of GDP, than any other advanced nation. Yet, we are not healthier and many still lack access to care and treatment. We need a system where all people can get the care they need when they need it regardless of income or age — not just millionaires and billionaires, but all of us. A federally administered single-payer health care program providing comprehensive coverage for all Americans is not only achievable but is morally principled and financially responsible. Physicians for National Health Program (PNHP) advocates replacing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with a publically-financed national health program that would cover medical care for all Americans by lowering costs and eliminating the profit driven insurance industry. Single payer will actually save money by slashing wasteful bureaucracy and adopting effective cost controls like fee schedules, global budgets for hospitals, and negotiating drug prices. The savings — over $500 billion annually on overhead alone — are more than enough to cover all.

It is actually much more expensive to keep patients away from health care in our current fragmented, market-based system than to provide care to all with a simple single-payer system. Controlling the rise in health inflation over time saves even more money. Without reform, the U.S. could spend 20 percent of our GDP on health care within a decade (twice as much as other nations with universal coverage), even as we leave 27 million people uninsured and millions more underinsured. Approximately 45,000 Americans die every year due to lack of health insurance and many more skip treatments that their insurance company refuses to cover. If you can afford care, you get it; if you can’t, you don’t — that’s rationing. The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (H.R 676) would cover all medically-necessary care without co-pays or deductibles. The program would be funded by savings obtained from replacing today’s inefficient, profit-oriented, multiple insurance payers with a single streamlined, nonprofit, public payer, and by modest new taxes based on ability to pay. Premiums would disappear; 95 percent of all households would save money. Patients would no longer face barriers such as co-pays and deductibles and would regain choice of doctor and hospital. Doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

Ask your U.S. representative in Congress to co-sponsor and support H.R 676. Visit PNHP’s website (http://www.pnhp.org/) for more information.

Suzanne Allison

Barnstead