The numerous commentaries by Jeff Wennberg and Bruce Lisman along with their TV and radio ads, ad nauseam, are long on fear and loathing of Green Mountain Care, the Vermont Legislature, and the Shumlin Administration regarding real health care reform, and short on alternatives of any kind. This is especially true concerning the “single payer” issue, as the above duo turns a blind eye to the fact that every other advanced country has a universal health care plan with better results at a lower cost.
For example, as Paul Starr, Pulitzer Prize recipient and Princeton University professor writes, the United States is the only economically advanced country where its citizens face “medical uninsurability,” “medical bankruptcy,” and “job lock,” due to a lack of a universal plan. The above pundits never address these problems that the citizens of the world’s most powerful and richest country face all too often.
Starr also points out that other advanced countries’ spend about 9 percent of GDP on universal health care including “single payer,” while in the United States we spend 17.6 percent. Our result still leaves about 50 million uninsured, and probably as many underinsured at any one time.
For bizarre political reasons, the United States is the only country where health care for its people is subservient to business interests of the insurance industry. Real health care reform is so long overdue, we must not wait any longer. To continue the status quo is insane.
Jerry Kilcourse
Montpelier