Dear Editor,
While waiting for a resolution to the Covid-19 crisis we need to be looking to the future of health care in general. We have continued to struggle with unaffordable premiums, unaffordable deductibles, and unaffordable co-pays, forcing choices between health care and food, rent, mortgages, clothes, tuition,….add to that the millions of people who just don’t have health care coverage at all, we need to do something about it.
Kevin Mullin, chair of the Vermont Green Mountain Care Board, publicly acknowledged last August that: “These rates are not affordable. We acknowledge they are not affordable.”
The unaffordable costs of health care afflict our schools, our highway departments, our towns and our police forces. Not only do we pay as individuals for our health insurance premiums, we also get a double hit by paying the health care costs of our public agencies.
An example in the public services area is the recent Act 46 education finance bill fiasco that came about as a result of the rising cost of education. Those rising costs were principally due to health care expenses which have escalated in the double digits in the last few years. The Act had little to do with improving our children’s education per se, and everything to do with money.
The upward spiral of health care costs has been wreaking havoc with our lives. As we work on reframing our way of life after this epidemic subsides we need to reframe the entire health care concept and system to something that is efficient, affordable and benefits everybody.
Robert Howe
North Bennington
