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Medicare for all is a fantasy

Not only did I work in health care in New York as both practice manager and subsequently as a department administrator, supervising clinics at New York University Medical Center, I have done medical billing and health care budgeting.

Secondly, I am now a senior with a Medicare Advantage plan. This particular plan is supplemented by the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). I used to have a traditional Medicare plan with an AARP supplemental plan. It was too costly.

I pay $144 a month for my Medicare premium. Added to that, there is a monthly premium as well as copays. Last year, my copays and Rx copays added up to around $4,000 out of pocket. My doctor can affirm that I don’t run to him constantly and do not take a lot of expensive drugs compared to others.

For people to think Medicare for all is the answer to affordable coverage for all is a fantasy. Hospitals and doctors would go out of business if they had to depend on it for income to operate. Many other plans that unions, corporations and government have provide the necessary income to cover operating costs.

The Affordable Care Act was a brilliant piece of legislation. It covered millions of people who were not covered. It has had a few necessary changes over the years. If people are not covered, who pays for their care? The taxpayer, or higher insurance premiums for all. In this, I agree with Joe Biden who feels the ACA can be improved and built on. It should never be repealed. The coverage for preexisting conditions should never be canceled. This can destroy families, as we already have learned in the past. People should not be penalized for being sick or having chronic conditions.

In summary, Medicare for all sounds good, but it’s simplistic. A fantasy. In order to make something like a national health plan that Canada or European countries have, we would need a national tax to pay for it, and it would be a nightmare to enact.

I noted a letter from a writer who supports Elizabeth Warren. She threw out “billions” for this and “billions” for that. Seriously? Where would it come from? Oh, yes, tax the rich. Do you know the rich actually pay more taxes than at least half of the country as it is?

The U.S. currently has a debt problem. The recent tax cut the rich got, along with corporations, deepened the debt by approximately $2 trillion, increasing the total debt to about $22-23 trillion. We are wasting hundreds of billions a year just paying interest on that debt. It has weakened the dollar. That means it costs more to buy goods from other countries, thereby worsening the trade deficit: dollar to pound, dollar to yen, etc. Our economy is not as strong as some would have us believe. It’s a house of cards. Bill Clinton erased the massive deficits of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidencies by raising taxes (with a Republican majority Congress, no less). It stopped the waste. He left office with anual surpluses. Here we are again. How can we enact any new plans with such debt? I was pleased to read the recent editorial on it.

I say leave health insurance alone and build on the Affordable Care Act. Get insurance companies to offer a wider range of plans. Solve the prescription cost problem. It can be done much more painlessly than some big, pie-in-the-sky idea.

Jennifer Zahn lives in Saranac Lake.

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