By Ken Saffier, M.D.
Letters, Contra Costa Times, Dec. 29, 2011
The Dec. 11 Times article, “Cost of health benefits soaring,” accurately describes an increasingly intolerable situation for those fortunate to have employer-based insurance.
Employees and businesses pay more for less coverage as the insurance industry seeks to maximize profits.
Other developed countries cover their population by some form of social health insurance and have a competitive advantage.
In the United States, we don’t have the best health care system in the world. Even with so-called reform, it’s expensive.
Some 23 million won’t be covered, and those who do have it increasingly get a flawed product that favors the insurance industry, not patients.
How many people with inadequate employer-based insurance with higher deductibles and co-pays will delay needed care and join the uninsured 45,000 who die annually due to lack of health care?
As a physician working in our county health system, we see increasing numbers of workers and their families who have lost their jobs and insurance.
We desperately need single-payer, improved Medicare for all.
Dr. Ken Saffier resides in Richmond, Calif.