We often hear insured people say, "We don't want to pay other people's medical bills." Like others before us, we would emphasize one fact: You already do.
Providers in the public sector need and get tax dollars to offset the losses they incur by caring for the uninsured. That's A: taxes. Here's B. We insured people, when we experience a medical expense, also experience a co-pay. Yes, part of your co-pay also goes to defray losses from treating the uninsured.
So you are paying for the uninsured, but are you getting a good deal? No. Emergency rooms -- that's where the uninsured go -- are staffed by talented and devoted people, but ERs are not designed to do all that they presently must do. When ERs take care of non-emergencies, up goes the cost. Besides, many true emergencies could be prevented by earlier attention.
If the uninsured are bad for your wallet, they are also bad for your health. Lacking a better solution, they clog ERs. This could turn tragic. We are overdue for en epidemic, and the mixing, as in airports, of an exploding population portends trouble. In the U.S. we have some 46 million uninsured people. Perhaps only 10 percent suddenly will get sick. These five million or so people are presently connected to our health care system only by ERs. Pandemonium.
We think we ought to find ways to get more, many more, people insured and connected. We might save money; we'd certainly save health.
KAY COOPER
ART PRANGE
Hillsborough
Democrats bewilder
The current "debate" over health care is one that I never thought I would actually witness after our last election. Not because others (Clinton, Kennedy), have made the attempt to overhaul a much-needed system with debate and eventually failure. Rather, my bewilderment is derived from a more insidious source -- the Democratic Party.
Here we have a party that won so many seats in the last election, it gave them something not held in years -- a majority. That should have told them, America is ready for change. (Most political pundits would agree, I believe, that the last election was largely a "lets get rid of the Republicans" movement.)
And in case this did not adequately drive home the point, America also voted in our first African-American president, which most would agree, was also monumental in stature. Now if these two facts are not sufficient to motivate the Democrats to embrace and support their President, I don't know what will. Whether you like him or not, agree with him or not, Obama was officially and properly elected. I might add that during his campaign, he let the people know what he intended to try to accomplish, and changing health care was most definitely on the table.
So if the facts were known, and he was still voted in, well maybe, just maybe, that is what the people wanted, and that is what his party ought to be working to deliver.
JOHN MAYO
Creedmoor
