National health insurance is not socialized medicine

To The Eagle:

Let me first say, as chief member of our island’s DODV (department of deja views) that my esteemed and erudite neighbor Howard Brawn has yet to be observed prevaricating about anything under discussion.

I agree. The seeds of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) weakness were sown at its inception. They might even have been “sewn” onto it like a denim patch, as Mr. Brawn suggested.

The devil is in the details of any plan, be it our Constitution, the federal tax code or that 2000 page monster, the ACA. Mr. Brawn’s latest devilishly detailed commentary emphasized the fact that only in a utopia could a health care insurance company provide all necessary coverage to all needful subscribers and do so profitably in the marketplace.

The poison pill the Obama administration had to swallow to advance the cause of affordable healthcare for more Americans was to make health insurance companies the vehicle to deliver the goods, at a price that guaranteed their profits.

The fed was forced to go into the utopia business. Federal subsidies to health insurance companies (1) use our tax dollars to ease their travails in the marketplace while (2) they charge us premium rates to both cushion their risk and maximize their profits. We get to pay’em twice.

There should not be a “health care marketplace.” Our health and its care should not be a marketable commodity, traded at our expense for the profit of others. We can save trillions of dollars by removing insurance companies from health care delivery.

PNHP, Physicians for a National Health Program, are lobbying the legislature to pass H.R. 676. National health insurance is not socialized medicine. It is socialized health insurance, not socialized medical care.

We don’t need utopia. We need a publicly financed national health program. Go to the PNHP website FAQ’s and have all of your questions answered. We CAN get there from here.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island