Bernie Sanders’ healthcare plan may work

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It is time again to go to the polls and decide who is going to be elected to look after the affairs of the citizens of this United States of America.

We all need to make wise choices and one of those choices is to take a look at the health care system and how we pay for it. I know from all the papers I read that a lot of people think that Bernie Sanders is advocating for a system that is free for everyone. That is just not true.

The facts are that what he is proposing is that healthcare is paid by the federal government out of taxes and be universal to all. In the system we now have we are slaved to the whims of the insurance companies and whether or not an employer is going to set up a health care insurance for their employees. It is a cumbersome system that requires many people many hours to just wield the rules and regulations of who is to be insured and who or what is covered.

And if people think that this is a system that has no cost they just do not look at the facts. Yes there would be taxes to pay for healthcare but we are already paying an enormous tax for health care just to be insured. My wife and me are on Medicare, and we have a cost for Medicare at $216 per month and also the deductible of $332 per year for Part B Medicare, and a cost for supplemental insurance to cover what is not covered by Medicare at $283 per month and $98 per month for Medicare Part D for pharmaceuticals. That figures out to be a whopping $7,496 per year to cover health insurance cost for two people.

Now I submit that if this is not a tax in another form what is it? We need to change the system. We now give free care in the form of Medicaid to those that cannot afford insurance, we provide stabilizing care to anyone that shows up at an emergency room and while they may be billed for that care it is rarely paid by the uninsured, and they are treated as a requirement of the health care system.

We all pay taxes that helps to alleviate some of this cost to the health care providers. So you see we are already being taxed so why not just go to health care for all, take the insurance burden away from employers and eliminate insurance company participation in the health care picture and go to a universal health care system. That would also allow veterans to be able to go to any healthcare facility to get healthcare. It is your choice, pay for it one way or the other but universal healthcare is not going to take a large amount off the top to pay out to insurance companies.

Kenneth V. Mosher Sr.

Gonzales

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