Letters for March 7, 2019

Middle industry

As we get into the debate about health care for all, I’d like someone to explain how, if the goal is to reduce health care costs, it can happen with the inclusion of a middle-man (middle-industry) whose sole purpose is to collect and manage the money at a profit?

We already know, based on available data, that overhead costs are significantly higher when private industry manages health care. But don’t just rely on the data, use your common sense. The primary difference between a privately-run and a publicly-run system is the CEOs and the profit margins. And removing the middle-industry won’t result in massive job loss since all those folks who are currently doing the real work will belong to the highly-qualified pool of people that will be needed to do the same real work for the new system.

Of course there will be some losses due to not needing so many people to figure out the convoluted system that currently exists. But does anyone really want to fight for maintaining inefficiency?

Afraid of losing your doctor? Do you really think that all those doctors doing the real work today will somehow disappear? They will, of course, be the health care providers in the new system.

But the big noise from the Republicans has been, “The Dems want to raise your taxes!” Of course they will, but it’s because they’re now managing your service at a significantly lower price. And the savings don’t stop there—remember those arguments for capitalism and the free market? If the economists are correct (and sometimes the good ones are), once businesses are no longer burdened with providing insurance to their employees, their costs will go down, which will reduce costs for just about everything we buy.

So please, I need someone to explain to me how including a middle-industry that does nothing other than collect and distribute money, at a very high profit margin, result in lower health care costs?

Michel Rottmann

Virginia City Highlands

Not that easy

There are easily 36,500 gun related deaths in the US every year (100 a day or ine every 15 minutes). And two of three are suicides, I hear/read. Messy. Someone has to clean all this up. Of course that does not include all the people worldwide who we are bombing the shit out of. Even messier.

Perhaps we should take a chapter from Soylent Green, and have centers where any who want to end it all can go and experience a bit more fun along the way? A killer (?) meal, a fine massage, maybe one last o-o-o-orgasm; some good time fun.

Even mass murderers might prefer this.

Get me real high and then donate my body to science, or as spare parts. Or beneath an apple tree? Ewwwww.

It’s fine, I’ll be over this tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.

Craig Bergland

Reno

Good ol’ Steve

We need a President who will move quickly to green technology and end the polluting of nature. At the same time we need someone who will increase defense against all attacks, including cyber attacks and attacks on our power grid.

Stephen Patterson is such a person. He doesn’t accept donations, so he’s not beholden to special interests. He also wants to replace tax breaks with tax incentives, have more diversity in the cabinet than ever before, and (perhaps with stronger sanctions) let such leaders as Putin and Kim Jong Un know they can no longer threaten or control us.

Alex Sokolow

Santa Monica

Editor’s note: For the benefit of readers, Patterson has a website at https://patterson2020.us/