Writer urges congressman to support health care plan for all

By: | TriCities.com
Published: November 19, 2009

I strongly oppose Congressman Rick Boucher’s “no” vote on the “Affordable Health Care for America Act.” A government-run public option, which I favor, is based on the principle of fair health care for all Americans, whereas I think Boucher’s plan to vote according to the profits of hospitals in our district is part of the problem. It is the profit mindset that is behind our egregious lack of health care for 36 million Americans and the dubious distinction of being the only civilized country not to care for the citizens.

Boucher explains he cast his no vote because hospital administrators in the Ninth District warn that their reduced profits might make them unable to deliver care to our area. I call this a scare tactic. If uninsured Americans get more health care and are more able to pay for it, there ought to be more health business all around. And most of those who do have good health care in our district, like Medicare and Medicaid recipients, have just the sort of government public option denied to the rest of us.

Congressman Boucher, you say that hospital administrators tell you that profitable, private payments, instead of what I call affordable government payments, are necessary for their operation. They tell us that to stay in business, they need to keep health care expensive and exclusive, because these expensive, private insurance payments are based in large part in denying health care to people who are ill.

Boucher explains that hospital administrators in our district say their hospitals receive payments from government run plans that are “below the actual costs.” How in the world can anyone establish what the actual costs of medical treatment are? No one has the same costs for any medical procedure, and it is the paperwork for all the different medical plans that is bankrupting the system. The actual costs of medical care are unknown, because they are based on widely varying degrees of profit in a vast, and ultimately cutthroat, industry of profit-based medical care.

Let’s not talk about profit first when we talk about medical care for all Americans. Let’s talk about need and fairness instead.

Carol Broderson

Independence, Va.