Seattle Times (print edition only)
March 22, 2010
Editor, The Times:
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