Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Your anti-Affordable Care Act editorial (last week's Quay County Sun) credits the plan to cut health care costs to "a Washington think tank described as an idea factory for President Obama."
Here are some "think tanks" funded by and exist for the sole purpose of maintaining the status quo that primarily benefits the 1 percent: American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, our own Rio Grande Foundation and numerous others.
The conservative "think tanks" far outnumber liberal organizations.
The purpose of the Affordable Care Act was twofold — health care for millions of uninsured citizens and bringing spiraling health care costs under control.
The plan is not perfect, but it's a start.
The original plan came from the Heritage Foundation and is close to Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan. Most of the cuts from Medicare come from Medicare Advantage and from hospital reimbursements.
Medicare Advantage's idea was to involve insurance companies in Medicare. They were never able to compete, resulting in more expense per patient than Medicare.
The hospitals were involved in setting the reimbursements; they agreed with them.
Our health care industry's condition was such that something had to be done. This has been repeated many times — the system was the most expensive in the world, ranked 37th by the World Health Organization, allowed millions to die every year due to no insurance, was a leading cause of bankruptcies.
The exploding expense was not sustainable.
Facts show ACA is not a government takeover of health care. Doctors, hospitals and pharmaceuticals stay private entities.
Now, care is rationed by your pocketbook and insurance company.
Repealing the ACA would cost approximately $109 billon over 10 years and leave us in our original mess.
The Congressional Budget Office, in July, reported ACA would insure millions of the uninsured and reduce the deficit.
Leon Logan
Tucumcari