LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Time for health care for all

Posted

To the editor:

We hear a great deal about the 20 million people who will lose health care with the current proposals for repealing the Affordable Care Act. Under the ACA, we still have 30 million people without access to medical care, so with the proposed cuts, we would see 50 million people without access to medical care.

Our population is only 320 million.

We also hear that 30 percent of the premiums we pay to insurance companies do not go to medical care. That is a lot of money — billions. The premiums pay for administrative costs, CEO salaries, and dividends to shareholders. In addition, in order to keep the insurance companies in business and “stabilize the market,” we pay subsidies (corporate welfare) to the insurance companies out of our taxes.

I do not think we can afford this. We, the public, are paying money to support an industry that doesn’t actually do anything but push paper and money around, and neglects 50 million people.

The arguments for single-payer health care are overwhelming. Dick Gottfried’s New York health care bill for single-payer healthcare will provide medical treatment to every New Yorker, and has passed the Assembly three years in a row. It will include vision, hearing and dental care. It will give workers the freedom to change jobs, and relieve businesses of the health care burden.

In most cases, the tax impact will be less than what we are paying in premiums, and the difference will be that only 2 percent of our money will go to administrative expenses, and 98 percent would go to doctors, nurses and hospitals for actually providing medical care.

It is time for Medicare for all. And if that is not achievable at the federal level, we should adopt it at the state level.

HELEN KRIM

CORRECTION: Helen Krim wrote the letter to the editor, “Time for health care for all.” Her name was misspelled on the Opinion page in the Aug. 3 edition.

Helen Krim,

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