Two columns in The World illustrate the gulf between those who understand the health care crisis and those who do not. John Stossel (The World, June 11) writes in defense of a free market solution to the problems created by that same approach to medical care insurance, while Froma Harrop (The World, June 11) describes one of the many problems inherent in treating access to medical care as a commodity.

Stossel, like many others, still believes an "invisible hand" guides the insurance market, leading inevitably to the most economical and effective product. This ignores the reality that the medical insurance industry, like other industries that exert an unhealthy influence on Congress, is not acting in a truly free market economy.  Anyone who looks objectively at the result of decades allowing a for-profit monopoly in the provision of medical services to those of working age is forced to conclude the free market has not worked. Ignoring all the facts, Stossel illogically argues government cannot possibly do a better job of providing health care to Americans.

The truth is Medicare beats out private insurance on any measure, despite its reputation as an expensive, unsustainable government program. It operates with a 3 percent overhead, while private insurers consume 30 percent of their revenue in overhead, marketing and profit.

When the price of individual policies are projected to equal average income by 2025 if nothing is done, we have to accept a government regulated system of health care delivery. Note that I said health care delivery, not medical care. There is a world of difference, as Harrop points out. In a national universal health care system, government regulation can assure a more rational distribution of medical resources, guided by research that has established which interventions actually affect health outcomes. It can use targeted incentives to ensure health care delivery is based on primary care prevention rather than expensive secondary treatments of avoidable illness.

Americans need to educate themselves about the Medicare-like single payer model adopted by almost every industrialized nation. The inherent efficiencies of such a system inevitably produce such enormous savings that it is easy to extend affordable and effective health care to all citizens.

We can demand our congressional representatives produce such a system, or pay the price at the polls. We cannot afford to accept the medical care insurance bailouts Congress is proposing, while refusing to abandon their corporate patrons and seriously consider a single-payer system.



Dr. Rick Staggenborg

Physicians for a National Health Plan

Coos Bay