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Reform must pay dividends

The Spokesman-Review

The ongoing health care reform debate has almost nothing to do with providing better health care. It’s about who gets paid and how.

According to a recent article in The Spokesman-Review (“Health care bills under fire,” July 21), Republicans generally oppose universal health insurance to include 47 million Americans who currently don’t have it. That’s not surprising, as those same politicians also oppose raising wages so workers can buy their own health insurance.

Both Democrats and Republicans fear “Obamacare” will raise taxes and the overall cost of health care by forcing taxpayers to subsidize insurance companies to provide universal health care. But those same lawmakers also oppose a single-payer system that would cut costs, improve the quality of health care and stimulate the economy by removing insurance companies and paying doctors and hospitals directly.

The bottom line is Americans want maximum shareholder value, not universal health care. Workers are expendable commodities, especially in a failing economy where 10 percent of them are unemployed. If workers get sick and die because their health insurance is inadequate or they have none at all, then employers simply hire new ones at lower wages to maximize shareholder value. That’s the American way, and that’s the way we like it.

David Kendall

Spokane



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