Best health care in the world? Really?
In his Nov. 28 column [“Kill the current messy bills and do health care right,” Opinion], Charles Krauthammer said the United States has the best health care in the world. What on Earth can his criteria be?
Nicholas Kristof quoted World Health Organization statistics in his Nov. 6 column [“World’s best health-care system? Not even close,” Opinion] showing the U.S. ranks 31st in life expectancy in the world, 37th in infant mortality and 34th in maternal mortality. He writes, “A child in the United States is two-and-a-half times as likely to die by age 5 as in Singapore or Sweden, and an American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as a woman in Ireland.”
This is the best health care in the world? What is Krauthammer smoking?
The World Health Organization, and others such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute, are likely to have researched their reports and not shot from the hip or the lip.
They undoubtedly are not influenced by the insurance industry, which is the big winner in our unnecessarily expensive and mediocre health-care system. Let’s get the facts right and bring about improvement.
— Robert L. Wiley, Mercer Island
Buying health insurance across state lines
As his second pillar of health-care reform, Charles Krauthammer advocates abolishing the prohibition against buying health insurance across state lines.
I have had the same health-insurance policy for about 20 years. During that time, I moved from California to Washington. The company is in Texas.
There is no prohibition against buying health insurance across state lines; Krauthammer is wrong.
There are, however, states that set a minimum standard for policies within their state and insurance companies that do not wish to meet those standards. It is those individual state standards that Republicans wish to abolish.
They cannot be honest about it because they are supposed to be the party of states’ rights. In fact, they are the party of corporate interests.
— Stephen Hunter, Vashon
Wishing for oranges in Wisconsin
Charles Krauthammer listed three good points to include in health-care reform in his column, but missed the most important: We must reconnect the recipient of a medical service (patient), the provider of the service (doctor), and the payer for the service (insurance).
As long as neither the patient nor physician have skin in the game, and a third party pays the bill, health care will remain expensive.
To use Krauthammer’s “oranges in Wisconsin” analogy, let’s assume you have food insurance.
If you go to a Wisconsin grocer in the winter, and see no oranges but want some, you just ask the grocer to order a case from Florida. “No problem,” says the grocer, and puts in the order. Because you have food insurance, you won’t have to pay, and the grocer cares nothing about the cost. Insurance will pay, what a deal.
But if you knew that the oranges would cost $200, had to pay a portion of that yourself, and your purchase would drive up the cost of food insurance, you might choose to take vitamin C instead.
Until we fix this part of the system, it will remain broken.
— Charles A. Pilcher, Kirkland