A Health-Care Fix

Concord Monitor (Concord NH)
October 22, 2008

Our health care mess is, at last, getting high billing. Republicans consider it a “responsibility,” Democrats consider it a “right.” Republicans want people to figure out which health care insurance benefits can be skimped on (“choice”) and to have the “responsibility” of selecting a specific plan. Democrats want you to have the same “right” to health care as you do public education, police and fire protection.

Both parties’ health care proposals, however, ignore major underlying problems: the profit motive in handling the payment processing for health care and the lack of any overall system.

We have a costly free market health insurance monster that is, literally, killing some of us and driving many people who have health insurance into bankruptcy. In basic health care, the drive to profit causes insurers to cancel coverage when people get sick and need it most, delay payment, deny coverage outright or use other tactics to protect profit.

According to a recent physician survey, health insurance companies add no value to health care. Why, then, are we paying extra for them?

We desperately need an overall health care system controlled by professionals, not by profiteers and not by “big government.” The solution is to create a low cost, efficient payment processing arrangement for basic health care and create an independent board populated with medical professionals, interested parties and consumers. The U.S. National Health Insurance Act proposes just such an arrangement with affordable, portable, comprehensive health care for everyone, even the unemployed.

By JOHN R. SWARTZ
Wilmot