Evils can hit middle income earners hard too

Editor,

We really need a single-payer medical system in this country. One big reason for-profit health insurances can’t or won’t help many of us: they have administrative costs that are at least 20 percent, or higher. Much Higher. Forbes list of 10 highest paid CEOs in the U.S. sport one head of a very well-known for-profit health insurance company who ‘earned’ at least $17.8 million dollars in recent years and has always been in the top 10 whenever I’ve checked Forbes in the past decade or so. And several peripheral medical groups, pharmacies, medical suppliers, etc., are on same list, while most of the banks, oil companies and tech. companies CEO’s rank lower or don’t even appear on the top ten list.

By contrast, Medicare spends 3 percent or less on administration costs. Payment for a single-payer system is centralized, without the cost of actuary departments and denials & appeals from a huge array of different plans. With the whole state involved, prices can be negotiated for services and drugs, like my own retirement plan from the State of Michigan., my former employer. Every few years our send-away good-for-one-year prescription company changes to another, I assume, cheaper, company. And the transition happens smoothly.

We simply must act to protect fellow Mainers from lack of care, bankruptcy, fighting with their insurance companies, and other plagues inherent in the for-profit industry, all that keep us from getting the medical attention we need. And, in spite of what we’ve heard, these evils, and I do mean evils, can hit middle income folks hard, too. The poor are and have been using emergency rooms for access to care, but these don’t usually help with preventive care and important follow-up with outpatient physicians, unless they have some way to pay. Then there are the medications and other outpatient treatments that may be required. . .

That $17.8 million dollars for that CEO had to come from somewhere. It comes from , excluding those with pre-existing conditions, denying many claims, charging high deductibles, dictating physician care, sometimes limiting access to some care or physicians, charging high premiums (especially to those not in huge groups who often see premiums double if anyone in group does make a claim – happened to me). In short, it’s coming from us.

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