Dear Editor,
As the commercial healthcare industry launches a public defense of itself in the wake of the killing of United Healthcare’s CEO, many point to Canada and the UK as reasons to fear a single-payer healthcare system for Americans.
These single-payer opponents ignore why so many of us want a single-payer system. You know, the many millions of Americans in medical debt, the many more millions unable to afford the deductibles and co-pays imposed by the insurance for which they have already paid outrageous premiums. The growing number of rural hospitals closing down. The ever-increasing number of doctors and nurses fleeing their professions. The vast portion of our resources being sucked up by the enormous task of administering this hopelessly complex healthcare “system.”
Then, there is the mountain of evidence that a single-payer system in the U.S. would cost less while allowing everyone to get the healthcare they need. This evidence stretches back at least to the 1991 report from the General Accounting Office and continues through the years.
It’s telling that the only alternative single-payer critics offer is our current system: the “status quo.” It’s incredible to me that what these critics see in the U.S. has not disabused them of the notion that the system we have now is worth keeping.
Lee Russ, Bennington
