Letter: Take back health care from corporate interests

Kathy Waller, September 27, 2016

The health care system in the United States is rigged.  We are the richest country in the world — and the only industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care to all citizens. Our health care financing system puts corporate profits ahead of people, working for millionaires but not for us. While patients suffer and die, United’s CEO is paid $66 million a year. Aetna recently abandoned the ACA health insurance exchanges, claiming that they were unprofitable, while posting $7 billion in overall profits last year. One-third of every dollar that we pay for premiums is spent on administrative waste, including exorbitant CEO salaries, shareholder profits, political lobbyists, and marketing campaigns designed to spread fear and lies about health care reform.

Our health care system is in medical, economic and moral crisis. In Colorado, 535 people die each year from causes that would have been avoidable if they could have afforded medical care. We spend nearly twice as much per capita than any other wealthy country, with worse outcomes. Medical debt is the greatest contributor to bankruptcies. There is a perverse incentive for profit-driven insurance companies to deny as much care as they can get away with in order to maximize profits for their shareholders.

It’s time for a Health Care Revolution! Health care should be a right, not a privilege, and the people of Colorado have a chance to lead the nation in saying “no” to the obscene profit-driven motives of insurance companies by joining together as co-owners of a cooperative health care financing system, ColoradoCare, with the motive of providing actual health care to all. ColoradoCare will cover all Coloradans, save billions and provide high-quality care. No more deductibles or narrow networks. This is not government-run health care; there will be transparency and accountability to us as owners of the cooperative, a proven business model. The system will exemplify high-quality medical care, fiscal responsibility and social justice.

It’s time to take back our health care from corporate interests. Learn more at www.coloradocare.org. Stand against the status quo of the robber baron pharmaceutical and insurance industry profiteers. Vote yes for Amendment 69 — ColoradoCare. Join the Health Care Revolution and Feel the Care!

Kathy Waller, M.D., Fort Collins
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