Flawed health care bill still better than nothing

The current health care reform bill may not be perfect, but whatever its flaws are, there will be a pretty high price for not doing anything. Without some action, medical costs in this country will skyrocket, and they're already unaffordable for too many people. Doing nothing or starting over is not an option.

A myth circulating says that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of GDP currently spent on health. As economist Paul Krugman said in the March 12 New York Times, “If having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a ‘takeover,' that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance barely pays for a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.”

The only part of health care in which there isn't a lot of federal intervention is for people who have to buy their own insurance. And that market is a disaster - no coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick and huge premium increases. It's this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What's wrong with that?

Dorothy Sandbrook

Marion