Insurance controls product it doesn’t make

A public option constitutes a compromise between universal health care and the current bankrupting private-health-insurance scam that consumes huge sums of tax money. This tax money is provided through tax-deductible and expensed insurance premiums, and direct tax subsidization - all of which are a huge revenue drain that has to be made up by the American taxpayer. This entitlement to the corporate health-insurance empire is the ultimate of flimflams in that it enables them to sell and ration access to a product that they do not even produce: medical science and technology.

The development of the nation's actual medical capacity is financed by tax money and tax-exempted charitable contributions; meanwhile, the taxpayer is being sold the Brooklyn Bridge of health-care coverage.

If this compromise does not find full acceptance, Congress can quickly and easily institute the solution just proposed by former Sen. George McGovern. He suggests that a Medicare option be extended to all Americans. Putting Americans into the security of the same boat ensures that all boats rise in providing our citizens with needed health care.

The extension of Medicare makes it politically hazardous for obstructionists to derail reform by attempting to pit one group of Americans against another.

Sam Osborne

West Branch