By Jessica Schorr Saxe, M.D.
Consumer Reports, Letters, March 2017
Re: “How to Get High-Quality, Low-Cost Healthcare,” January 2017:
Your entire article speaks to the need for a single-payer health system. All the problems you discuss would become obsolete. People would no longer avoid preventive and other necessary care due to anticipated expense. They would not need to invest time in comparison shopping, waste valuable time at doctor appointments discussing costs, schedule needed care around paying off deductibles, nor worry about in-network care (which can be difficult due to narrow, changing, or misleading networks). Other developed nations have some form of a single-payer system, which provides universal access, lower cost, better outcomes, and more choice than ours. Improving and expanding Medicare would mean that we could actually get health care instead of investing our personal (and collective) energy in strategizing about how to receive care.
Dr. Jessica Schorr Saxe is chair, Health Care Justice, Charlotte, N.C.