Randy Brock, the Vermont Republican gubernatorial candidate advocates opening Vermont up to all kinds of private health insurance including, in his words, “high-deductible policies.” In your paper’s recent article on Brock’s health care plan (May 25), he states, “We can ensure that health insurance is available to everyone and no Vermonter is bankrupted by catastrophic illness.”
No Vermonter bankrupted by catastrophic illness if we allow high-deductible health insurance plans? Doesn’t Brock realize that over 60 percent of Americans who go bankrupt due to catastrophic illness actually had private health insurance? It was because these high-deductible plans paid so little when people had a health care emergency that they went bankrupt in the first place.
Ultimately, only a single-payer system can eliminate medical bankruptcies because it cuts out the paperwork and added costs of multiple insurance companies, and uses the savings to guarantee access to health care as a public good to all our state’s residents. Brock’s plan will actually create a situation in which more Vermonters than ever will face the danger of bankruptcy if they encounter a serious illness.
ELLEN OXFELD
Middlebury