Single-payer is the fix

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers wrote me recently: “Our agenda in the upcoming months will continue to focus on the problems of a government centered approach to health care reform (that puts the government ahead of the patient) rather than a patient centered approach.”

So – common ground – I agree.

A patient-centered approach is, also, categorically not a profit-centered approach: the bonanza for Big Pharma and the insurance middlemen that we are stuck with now. The hard-earned money we pay for health care should go to the people who provide it: doctors, nurses, health care workers, public servants. In short, health providers, not to the pharmaceutical industry and insurance industries. Meaning: a single-payer system.

I have no quarrel with people who, by virtue of their hard work, knowledge, and expertise, make a comfortable living providing health services to the community. I make a distinction, however, between making a comfortable living and getting rich while denying care to people who are suffering.

Health care should be patient-centered, not profit-centered. There should be plenty of room for honest, hard-working, skilled people to make a good living in health care. A single fix for the Affordable Care Act: single payer.

Mike Finity

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