The American Spectator

Print Email

Text Size

Reader Mail

(Page 2 of 13)

In response to your blog: The only reason anyone should get healthcare in our wealthy country is if they are sick. No one should be denied healthcare who needs it. That is the way it works in the 36 industrialized and advanced nations of the world. Unfortunately, our country is not among those countries highly rated for their healthcare practices. We are number 37, just ahead of Slovenia in the World Health Organization ranking of healthcare systems. We are also far behind these countries in the "best countries in which to do business" rated by the World Trade Organization.

But I'm so excited by your blog. I've been waiting to see who would come to the rescue of the insurance companies. Yours is the first defense of the private insurance companies and their hundreds of billions of dollars in profits that I have seen in all of the press. I think it is interesting for all of us since the private health insurance companies provide no healthcare. They just take our money, use almost a third of it for wasteful bureaucracy and profits, marketing and lobbying -- and deny or delay payment to patients, the easiest way to increase their mammoth profits.

You say, "Profit is what drives producers to provide goods and services at a lower price while also improving quality." Not in the United States! Here the profit motive drives the health industry to spend more money for less goods and services. We spend about twice as much and we get less than people do in the countries that have healthcare systems that are not controlled by the profit-driven companies.

You say, "Profit also acts as a "signal" to producers, letting them know where to invest their resources." Yes, I guess that is true since they have had a feeding frenzy on Viagra and many other high-profit drugs while millions go without the less-expensive drugs they really need. Profits are soaring while hundreds of ads for the healthcare industry clutter our nightly television programming and healthcare is lagging nationwide.

You say, "Products and services that people find more useful tend to yield higher profits, incentivizing producers to put more resources into them." This is true, and it is patently unhelpful in the provision of healthcare to the American people. It also eliminates most preventive and primary care, an increase in highly trained nurses and doctors in our communities and in our hospitals, neighborhood clinics, and doctor/patient choice of care, but it probably includes higher priced private rooms in hospitals, more expensive equipment and more expensive drugs.

You say, "Without profits, doctors and other providers won't know which services patients find most useful, pharmaceutical companies won't know which drugs are most effective, and insurance companies won't know which insurance products are most desired." PLEASE! Give us credit. We know what we want -- healthcare for everybody, no denials, no premiums, no co-pays and no deductibles. We want to make healthcare decisions with our doctors -- our choice of doctors, not have them driven by profit-making companies. Almost 50 million of us have no healthcare coverage at all and another 50 million people are denied care, denied prescription drugs, are precariously covered, don't know how much co-pays, deductibles and denials they are facing if they do get sick, and are losing their homes, their lives and their dignity through ever-increasing bankruptcies.

topics:
Trade, Bill Clinton, Television, Business, Religion, Islam, Environment, Books, Constitution, Law, Military, Iraq, Pakistan, NATO, North Korea, Energy