LETTER: Our life expectancy is decreasing because ...

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Of the 30 industrial countries, the U.S. is the only country where the people’s life expectancy is decreasing.

The U.S. ranks near the bottom as far as infant morality and other indicators.

The U.S. does have an exceptional emergency medicine program for car accidents and trauma. Healthcare costs roughly 18 percent of the gross domestic product.

England and Norway, which have single-payer government-run programs, cost 9 percent of the GDP. Germany and Switzerland have private nonprofit health maintenance organizations like Group Health. They pay 12 percent of GDP.

In the U.S., the veterans hospitals are run by the government and the cost is 60 percent of the cost of the average Medicare patient. This is in spite of the fact that large numbers of servicemen and servicewomen have serious problems. The Medicare drug program had a rider attached to it that the government couldn’t negotiate lower prices like the VA does.

The senator from Texas that put the rider in quit before his term was up and took a $2 million-a-year job with a drug company.

Republican attempts to leave people uninsured will backfire, and states will be forced to create their own single-payer systems.

More than 30 percent of the cost of medicine is paperwork. With a single-payer system this would be reduced. If you need to go to the ER, you hand them your medical credit card. They swipe the card and your medical history comes up. The hospital is paid the next day. It is fast and efficient and cost effective.

The problem in the U.S. is we have the trial attorneys, doctors, for-pay hospitals, medical laboratories, nursing homes, and insurance companies all trying to figure out how to get a bigger slice of the economic pie.

JAMES FRITZ

Port Townsend