Letter to the Editor:

Medicare-For-All

Too expensive? Not if we once again insure that corporations and the wealthy are actually paying taxes owed and also restore higher taxes upon both as was comparable in decades past. Whatever increase might come to the middle class will be more than made up by no longer having to pay insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs. According to Wall Street Journal, at present roughly 30 million Americans are uninsured, 86 million underinsured, and 40,000 die from that same deprivation every year. This does not happen in countries with universal insurance.

The Canadian single-payer system is vastly more efficient and covers every Canadian at half the average per capita cost of that in our country (Canada spends 10% of it’s GDP on health care and covers everyone; the US is spending nearly 18% of GDP while leaving out tens of millions of people).

Their system includes free choice of doctor and hospital and they have far less billing fraud with only one billing agent involved, not to mention administrative costs for hospitals and doctors drop to less than half of ours.

No one in Canada goes bankrupt due to medical bills as happens over half a million times a year here.

Our drug prices have soared, in contrast to the bargaining power of the Canadian one-payer system.

And the secrecy of Insurance companies hide huge hidden costs (like Aetna paying it’s CEO nearly $59 million compensation in 2017) with salaries and compensations that come directly out of our pockets.

Think about it.

Mary McBee

Tama