LETTER: Check out HR 676 and call Congress

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Health care should be a right. A bill to ensure this right has already begun to gather support from members of Congress.

The bill is HR 676 Medicare for All 2017.

It is a bill that promotes single-payer government-sponsored insurance.

Currently, we allow private health insurance to dictate our care. The insurers decide what they pay for. It is a for-profit business, so they have to charge more money for our premiums than they pay out in claims.

We are betting against ourselves when we pay for health insurance.

We do this out of fear that one day we will have an expensive catastrophic event, such as a heart attack. Medical expenses were the number-one cause of bankruptcy in this country.

The Affordable Care Act helped many of us that could not afford any insurance at all.

Many middle-income folks were hurt by the ACA because they could not get enough financial help from the system, and the insurance agencies continued to gouge them.

The ACA allowed the insurance companies to maintain their position in the health care system. They raised premiums and did not pay for many services.

The insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry make more money than any other entities involved in health care.

The AHCA (American Health Care Act of 2017) proposed by the new administration was worse than the ACA. It rightfully failed.

Now is the time for a new paradigm.

Please take the time to read HR 676 bill Medicare for All (you can do this at an internet site Congress.org). If you believe, as I do, that it is worthwhile, call your representatives to support this bill.

JILL ALLISON

Port Townsend