Letters to the Editor: If Canada can have single-payer healthcare, so can California

To the editor: California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), who has cast doubt on the viability of a single-payer healthcare bill, cannot be unaware that our neighbors to the north have had a well-functioning single-payer system since 1971. Their drugs are much cheaper than ours, and their population is healthier because of it.

The simple act of Googling “how Canada got single-payer healthcare� could help Rivas and other state legislators understand that not only is it possible to adopt such a system in California, but also that many other industrialized nations have already done it.

The insurance industry does not heal; it simply sucks revenue out of our pockets to make a profit. Doctors are sick of it too.

So, Mr. Speaker, please muster the courage to get this bill to the governor’s desk.

Sylvia Hampton, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Rivas is disingenuous in his claim that the state can’t afford a single-payer healthcare system in the face of spiraling budget deficits.

Such a system will generate considerable cost savings through the removal of multi-payer administrative bloat, savings on bulk negotiations and purchases, stopping unregulated price increases, and focusing on preventive care and early treatment. The removal of health insurance premiums and other out-of-pocket expenses will easily offset any tax increases.

The time for Assembly Bill 2200, a prudent salve for our finances and health, is now.

James Sarantinos, Los Angeles

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To the editor: If less expensive healthcare is what people want, why not require that prices paid by insurers to healthcare providers be made public? (“California wants to make your healthcare less expensive,� Opinion, Feb. 23)

Why is it so difficult to learn that the prices paid by insurers for identical medical, dental and ancillary procedures can range from $30 to $300 to $3,000 from providers located only a few blocks apart? Getting medical pricing information is like pulling teeth.

Do you think there’s a reason that insurers are hiding medical pricing and payment information from the public? Maybe a fear that true competition among healthcare providers would hurt their monopoly?

Charles E. Everett, Santa Monica

The writer is a healthcare policy analyst.