Nation needs single-payer health care

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Aug 15, 2008 | by BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

A report in Annals of Internal Medicine published earlier this month shows that about 11.4 million Americans with chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes or asthma lack health insurance, causing many to delay or forgo needed medical care.

The authors say that under our for-profit private health insurance arrangements, access to care for people in this situation often "seems to be unobtainable."

"As a result, their treatable conditions go untreated and "many may face early disability and death as a result."

These findings dovetail an Institute of Medicine study that estimates 18,000 Americans die yearly because they lack health insurance.

Private insurers profit by enrolling the healthy, screening out the sick and denying claims.

They burden us with wasteful administrative costs, including over- the-top executive salaries. We can't afford this fragmented, inefficient system anymore.

What's needed is an improved and expanded "Medicare-for-all," a single-payer national health insurance program -- where care's publicly financed but privately delivered.

Such programs have a proven track record of delivering better- quality, comprehensive care to everyone at lower cost. It was Medicare, for example, that paid for Sen. Edward Kennedy's superb treatment for brain cancer.

The National Health Insurance Act, HR 676, would enact such a program.

Dr. John Tysell

Richmond

We never learn

I learned years ago at the infantry school to "Never send a boy to do a man's job," meaning don't make the mistake of not committing the number of troops needed to accomplish the mission.

It's a lesson obviously never learned by the civilian leadership of our military establishment, ambitious politicians, and even perhaps some top military.

Before we invaded Iraq, Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, opined, during a congressional hearing, that several hundred thousand troops would be needed. But his comment was muted by the civilian leadership and never followed up by Congress.

Although no one questioned the Army's general further, we simply did not have enough troops to field an army of several hundred thousand.

Now, following a belated beef up of our troop strength in Iraq, it is being proposed to withdraw troops from Iraq before the job is done and to minimally increase our forces in Afghanistan, essentially to rob Peter to pay Paul.

Of course, we also didn't have enough troops to go into Afghanistan to begin with.

We simply didn't learn anything from Vietnam: that Americans are absolutely incapable, militarily, intellectually or politically, of conducting and achieving success in counter-insurgency warfare.

Shigeki J. Sugiyama

Richmond

Carbon controls

Joel Achenbach's article "Not so fast -- don't get blown over by the rush to blame global warming" (Times, Aug. 8) glibly describes the dire results of various "models" of the future climate.

However, Achenbach does not discuss the dire results of proposed carbon emission controls in terms of transforming our economy and culture back to the poverty-stricken levels of the early 1800s.

If that sounds unbelievable, check EPA's Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking as a response to our learned Supreme Court's determination that greenhouse gases (GHG) are now included in the Clean Air Act: www.epa.gov/climatechange/anpr.html.> The preface from Stephen L. Johnson, the EPA administrator, is a warning, and says in part "if EPA were to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act, then regulation of smaller stationary sources that also emit GHG, such as apartment buildings, large homes, schools, and hospitals could also be triggered." The annual cost per employee for small businesses would be $7,447-- Small Business Administration.

This is a totalitarian proposal to chain the American people. If implemented, it would effectively trash the Bill of Rights and as well as wipe out the national electric power system. EPA invites public comments.

Ron Kilmartin

Pleasant Hill

Avoid unfair tax

I agree with the Times' editorial "Flawed sales-tax plan," dealing with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to raise sales tax by one percentage point to help balance the state budget.

As the editorial notes, sales taxes fall heavier on low-income families than on wealthy Californians.

That's because poor people and those living on fixed income like Social Security benefits have to pay a higher percentage of their income on taxed items than do higher income people. It's a regressive type of taxation, and thus it's not fair.

One dubious part of the governor's proposal is that the one percentage point increase will be temporary and will expire in three years.

Once this proposal is enacted into law, chances are it will not be rolled back. Besides, it's not clear what assumptions the governor based his sales tax plan on.

Within three years a lot of things can happen. Does Schwarzenegger have clairvoyance?

As an alternative, the Times suggests some short-term income surtax is better than a sales tax increase.