Seattle Times, print edition, March 22nd, 2010

 

Regarding the insurance albatross the politicians just hung around our neck [“Historic health-care overhaul passes,” Seattle Times, page one, March 22]:

An estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually will result from 23 million still uninsured nine years out;

Millions of middle-income people will be pressured to buy commercial policies that cost up to 9.5 percent of income but cover an average of only 70 percent of medical expenses;

Insurance firms [which give no care to anyone] will get at least $447 billion in taxpayer money in subsidies;

The bill will drain about $40 billion from Medicare payments to safety-net hospitals;

People with employer-based coverage will be locked into their plan’s limited network of providers;

Health-care costs will continue to skyrocket, like they did in Massachusetts;

There are loopholes in the pre-existing conditions regulations;

Women’s reproductive rights will be further eroded.

We needed and still need a single-payer, equal-access-for-all plan. Physicians for A National Health Program and United for Single Payer locally will continue to work on this until we get it right.

— Linda Jansen, Seattle