To the editor:
I first want to publicly thank Senator Snowe for her courageous vote on the Finance Committee last week to advance the debate on health care reform. It must be very difficult for her to stand up to all the name calling and other vituperation that are going her way as a result. I do not understand why, however, we cannot simply open up Medicare so that all American citizens can participate. Now only the aged and disabled, the most expensive cohorts of medical consumers, can join. Couldn’t the bean counters at the CBO or whatever agency is appropriate easily determine what fair premiums would be for citizens to join Medicare at any age? It seems to me that allowing more younger and healthier participants would go a long way toward putting Medicare back on a financially sound footing as well as relieving the enormous burden that many Americans are suffering under at this time. There would still be plenty of room for private insurers to cover those who are not in favor of “socialized” medicine and to provide policies to supplement Medicare.
Furthermore, I am very concerned over Sen. Snowe’s stance on the need for a “trigger” before she could support any public option. How much of a trigger does she need? The country is in crisis now. Many families are going without health care because they cannot afford the premiums that are going to pay for everything but health care: exorbitant salaries for CEOs and employees whose only job is to deny coverage, advertising, lobbying to defeat health care reform, etc. etc. etc. And now Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield wants a guaranteed 3 percent profit for its shareholders (in these days when the rest of us are lucky to see 1 percent from our bank accounts and 50 percent remaining in our 401k’s on top of having enough income to pay those salaries and lobbyists; in fact they are so convinced that they should have such a guarantee that they have sued the state of Maine to demand it. This after Anthem has raised its premium rates in Maine every year since it became “for profit” in 1999 — the effect of those increases has been that if someone were paying a $100 premium in 1999, he or she must now pay $355 — an increase of over 350 percent.
Is that not enough evidence of the bad faith of the insurance industry? If not, what will it take before we can have real competition in the health insurance marketplace by legislating a public option?
Presque Isle
