Editor:
The price of medical insurance policies and co-pays has become more expensive for your reader, Thomas M.Sipos, and some other Americans. However, expensive policies are not the fault of Obamacare. Expensive policies are the fault of "Republican-care" support of medical insurance companies for which Obama sacrificed "the public option," which would have created competition for these companies.
Medical insurance companies' only job is to limit and deny medical care, as they pocket 30 to 40 percent of these more expensive, now reliable policies. By comparison, the overhead of government-run Medicare is only 5 percent. Single-payer medical systems in every other industrial country manage to provide better medical outcomes than the U.S., which spends twice as much per capita. Here, private insurance companies decide who gets care and who doesn't, who lives or dies, who goes broke and who doesn't.
Medical insurance companies' stock has only soared since Obamacare took effect.
Obamacare hasn't been a gift to most doctors or hospitals. It has created more work fighting insurance companies for every order and prescription. However, more peopleget care.
The Affordable Care Actcan be improved. Medicare works, but should be improved and should be shared with all Americans. On the eve of Medicare's 50th birthday July 30, we need to protect Medicare, improve it and expand it to cover everyone from birth to death and eliminate the private insurance middlemen!
Nancy Niparko, MD
Beverly Hills
