To the Editor: As the commercial healthcare industry launches a public defense of itself in the wake of the killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO, many point to Canada and the UK as reasons to fear a single payer healthcare system for Americans. These single payer opponents seem to simply ignore the reasons that so many of us want a single payer system. You know, the many millions of Americans in medical debt, the many more millions unable to afford the deductibles and co-pays imposed by the insurance for which they have already paid outrageous premiums. The growing number of rural hospitals closing down. The growing number of doctors and nurses fleeing their professions. The huge portion of our resources being sucked up by the enormous task of administering this hopelessly complex healthcare "system." Then there is the mountain of evidence that a single payer system in the US would cost less while allowing everyone to get the healthcare they need. This evidence stretches back at least to the 1991 report from the General Accounting Office. It's telling that the only alternative that single payer critics seem to offer is the system we have now: the "status quo." It's amazing to me that what these critics see in the US has not disabused them of the notion that the system we have now is worth keeping.
Lee Russ
Bennington, Dec. 20