LETTER: Health care for all makes sense

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Health care for all makes sense

Did you know that your taxes are paying healthcare insurance for 60 percent of our country’s residents? All federal, state, county and city employees and their families; all law enforcement personnel and their families; firefighters and their families; many workers on government contracts; Veterans Administration medical system; Indian Health Service; Medicare and Medicaid; and provide grants for healthcare research and expensive equipment. The cost must be billions.

Consider how much we spend on healthcare:

•Cost of healthcare insurance; estimate $600/month, which amounts to $7,200 yearly for moderate coverage with no subsidy and $2,000 deductible adds up to $9,200

• Prescription drugs estimate: $360

• Dental work for cracked tooth and two fillings: $1,800

• Dilation and vision exam for two people: $400

• Homeowner’s liability insurance: $70

• Vehicle liability insurance, including uninsured driver coverage: $160

If we had improved Medicare for all as our medical system, those medical expenses would be covered, including vision, dental and mental healthcare. Liability insurance wouldn’t be necessary. If someone got hurt, their care is covered.

Like Social Security, this system would be financed by a tax on income. Before you panic about the word “tax,” note that you are currently paying somewhere near the sum of the costs described above, about $12,000.

Included in this are salaries of insurance company bureaucracy, about 30 cents on every dollar. Medicare bureaucracy costs about 3 cents on every dollar, doing its business with reasonable success.

The insurance companies are collecting 27 cents not needed to do their business, used to pay their administrators millions from what we pay for insurance.

The Leader editorial on March 15 and the Delaney letter on March 1 suggest an answer to this – Medicare for everyone. All industrialized nations in the world can do it. Why can’t we?

JENIFER TAYLOR

Port Townsend