Consider pitfalls of a single payer system

A number of letters support a single payer, government-paid health care system as the road to utopia. Perhaps they believe they will receive free, quality health care whenever they need or want it. Perhaps so, perhaps not.

How about some comments from people currently covered under such a system? It might be perfectly suited to a country with a population of 60 million, but we don't know how it would work with our population of 300 million.

We have a national debt in the trillions, the largest percentage of GDP since world War II, a Social Security system heading for trouble, yet I have seen no suggestions from single payer advocates on how to pay for it. How much longer can we continue to send our social bills to the rich, until "there ain't no rich no more?"

One writer suggested we pattern this system after Medicare, which covers only people over 65 and is heading toward financial crisis. Can you imagine the financial resources needed to fund a system that covers all our population?

I'm not saying we shouldn't consider a single payer plan, but the idea that we should grab such an alternative without examining all aspects could be worse for our country than doing nothing at all.

-- Pete Watson, Pewaukee

Health care delivery is the real problem

The real difficulty with health care reform, dating back to the Clinton days, is the solution does not fit the problem. Providing coverage and making health care coverage and care less costly does not provide health care.

The single working parent with three children has no way to get to the clinic during the typical work day. The poor and unemployed do not necessarily have the means or skills to navigate the "terrain."

The solution is to make health care truly available first and affordable second. Why are there not fully staffed immediate health care clinics in our inner city schools? Why are there no mobile medical care facilities reaching into impoverished inner cities and remote rural areas? Are there clinics that visit subsidized housing areas? Do we do preventative care, be it health or dental, at our shelters?

This is not a crisis of coverage -- it is about the care. It must be both efficient and effective. Working to become more efficient in reducing health care costs only makes us more efficient at working ineffectively. We must take health care to those who most need it. We must have more efficient delivery systems to effectively provide needed care. More affordable insurance or national coverage is more lipstick on the same old pig.

-- Bruce J. Rashke, Madison

Take time to get health care coverage right

I don't get it -- what's the rush on passing a health care bill?

President Barack Obama is impatient to pass a bill although there seems to be no consensus on Capitol Hill about what should be in it. The multiple versions of bills being considered apparently have only one thing in common -- the absence of detail about how things would work and how we would pay for it. The only thing everyone agrees on is that it will be expensive.

This feels like the mad rush we witnessed to pass the enormous stimulus package, which was put to vote before anyone had time to read it.

If this is such an important issue, shouldn't lawmakers take the time to get it right? If it is going to be so expensive, shouldn't they at least get a final copy of the bill with the details spelled out, and be given time to read it before voting on it? What's the rush?

-- Jill Camacho, Madison

Insurance industry keeps us behind times

Most people know the Medicare "doughnut hole," the hole in covering prescription drug costs Congress left for the friendly health insurance companies. The "public option" would be like the doughnut hole in any alleged comprehensive "plan" involving insurance companies.

The doughnut would be the for-profit "private option," the ongoing fraud and larceny of the insurance companies. Not only is medical care for profit an abomination, the insurance companies are dishonest. Insurance companies have no business in medicine.

The U.S. needs to enter the 20th century -- that's right, the "20th" century, since the civilized world has had single payer health care since the last century.

Single payer means you still go to the doctors and providers of your choice, but your bills are paid simply and easily out of the people's own monies. Think of Medicare for everyone.

-- Ted Voth Jr., Madison