Now is not the time to start over
Editor, The Times:
“Start over?” The Times’ prescription for solving our health-care woes is to “start over”? [“Congress must reject health-reform bill,” Opinion, March 16]. A week away from possible completion and the editorial board wants to begin again?
The Obama administration and a majority of the Senate and the House have worked for more than a year to bring ideas to the table and the opposition has thrown one obstacle after another in the way — not to improve the proposal so much as to block it. Not to find solutions so much as to prevent a successful plan from being approved. And at the end of this process, The Times’ opinion is: “Not good enough, should have been doing something else — let’s start over.”
Perhaps a year ago, suggesting a stronger focus on jobs and the economy would have made sense — though this administration has already put enormous focus on those issues. But now, so close to passage, suggesting that they toss out all this time and effort because you wish they had worked on something else is merely avoiding the issue.
The editorial makes no mention and takes no issue with the opponents who are refusing to contribute to any efforts to improve our overly expensive, underperforming health system. Instead, you join them in refusing to participate in the debate. Perhaps it is the editorial board that should “start over.”
— Jeff Clarke, Everett
Implications for not passing health care
The Times’ true colors shine loud and clear in Tuesday’s anti-health-care editorial. If you scrap the bill like you propose, it would be so damaging to the economy and our nation.
Countless older people would retire before 65 if they could buy insurance, thus freeing up jobs. More small businesses would start if they could get insurance from an exchange. Insurance premiums wouldn’t double in the next 10 years — as they have in the last 10.
Countless people wouldn’t lose their homes or go bankrupt because of illness — how could they then stimulate the economy? Medicare wouldn’t be in the red in seven to eight years. And most of all, 45,000 people a year would not die for lack of health care and our middle class would not disappear..
— Jim and Wanda Granquist, Auburn
Comparison to Mexican drug war, Prohibition
I was shocked to read the editorial asking Congress to reject the health-care bill. The Times and other opponents of the health-care bill ignore the current cost of existing health care and the thousands of people without affordable health care.
Even with its many flaws, it would be a big improvement over what we have. Also, the long-term cost would be less than it is now — not only in terms of money but also in terms of the suffering of people without health care.
The vicious drug war in Mexico would eventually go away if the U.S. would legalize all drugs and sell them in secure dispensaries. The profits from the sales could be used to pay for drug-treatment centers. The users would be known and could be encouraged to go get free treatment.
Those of us old enough to live during Prohibition remember the violence, rum runners and bootleg whiskey. Where I lived — in a community of about 100 — two young drinkers died of liver damage caused by bootleg whiskey.
— Glen Carey, Seattle
Those who have health care unwilling to extend benefits
Obviously, The Times’ editors who keep harping that the “time is not right” to pass the health-care bill are not in the position of having no health insurance, of not being able to afford medical care for sick children or of having health benefits denied due to pre-existing conditions.
Because Congress and the president are in fact moving ahead with programs to provide jobs and to regulate financial excesses, The Times’ claim that other things should take priority seems purely artificial. The Congressional Budget Office has clearly demonstrated that the bill pays for itself over time and it is ridiculous that the richest country in the world lags so far behind other developed countries in health indicators such as infant mortality, well-being and life expectancy.
Every day that we put off improving our health-care system extends human suffering and creates a greater burden for those who must eventually deal with it.
— Lee Holmer, Seattle
Shift of responsibility symptomatic of health-care problem
The article that questioned the benefits of some of the medical tests that U.S. physicians prescribe to their patients took dead aim at the key factor underlying rising health-care costs: a widespread belief that the state of one’s health is primarily based on doctor visits rather than on lifestyle choices [“Experts say U.S. doctors overtesting, overtreating,” News, March 13].
This shifting of health-care responsibility to medical professionals has fueled an incessant demand for third-party payments to cover nearly all medical services. Small wonder that many physicians tend to prescribe expensive medical tests of dubious value when an outside payer — i.e. a government department or insurance company — will pick up most, if not all, of the tab.
This heavy reliance on frequent medical examinations, along with corrective or reparative treatments, is a clumsy and inefficient health-maintenance strategy that is unaffordable to all but the wealthiest.
For everyone else, the only sustainable program is one that emphasizes a lifestyle directed toward preventing health problems — and all their attendant costly treatments — through avoidance of harmful substances and participation in regular exercise.
We must all acknowledge that medical examinations and treatments are not economically viable substitutes for disciplined behavior.
— Mark G. Warner, Bellevue