Congress’ Health Plan Debate

As co-sponsors of the McDermott American Health Security Act, we were very disappointed in “Senate Backs Health Bill in Boost to Clinton” (June 19). Your writer dismisses passage by the House labor-management subcommittee of single-payer health reform legislation as having “little meaning” and having “no chance of passing.” Together with over 85 of our House colleagues, we frankly couldn’t disagree more. First of all, the single-payer bill is the only health reform bill to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office as being deficit neutral, reducing administrative costs by $100 billion and reducing the total national health spending by $175 billion by the year 2003. Single-payer puts the business of making medical decisions back into the hands of doctors and out of the hands of insurance paper pushers.

In the minds of many Americans, the single-payer approach is the best way to achieve true health reform. In drafting the White House proposal, President Clinton recognized the value of single-payer by allowing states like California the flexibility to create a single-payer system.

Unfortunately, your writer is right about one thing: 90 members of the House are not enough to enact single-payer legislation into law. But to characterize the subcommittee’s action as meaningless is shortsighted: To date, no health reform plan has enough support for passage on the floor of the House. As health care reform traverses the maze of multi-committee referral, the action of the subcommittee reaffirms the commitment to single-payer in the House and fires a warning shot across the bow of those who would seek to remove the state single-payer option from whatever form of legislation reaches the House floor.

REP. MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ

D-Monterey Park

REP. LYNN C. WOOLSEY

D-Petaluma

REP. GEORGE MILLER

D-Martinez

I have not seen discussion of what I believe to be the crucial issue. There are many countries in the world that have national health-care plans and some of those plans are more successful than others. Every one of the countries that has a successful plan, without exception, has a small, slow-growing population. Meanwhile, in the U.S., which has a large population and the fastest growing population of any developed country, sentiment for a health care plan increases when people think about the need for one and decreases when the huge amount that any of the health care alternatives would cost in this country is examined.

Some of the consequences of overpopulation and of excessive population growth are obvious; traffic congestion for example. Others are not obvious. Health care must be added to the latter list. When I say no health plan should be established now, it is not because I don’t think we need one. Rather, it is because our population must be brought under control for there to be any prospect of success for a health care plan in this country.

BARRY GOLDSTEIN

Long Beach

Jim Borgman’s June 17 cartoon is priceless (“Congress hands down its prescription for health care reform,” Commentary). It does not matter where the blame should be spread; when there was no health care reform bill ready for debate by mid-February, 13 months into the problem, everybody involved should have started over. That means the White House, Congress, the medical community, the business community, et al. Can any person in this nation believe that at this late date something comprehensible can be cobbled together before Congress adjourns?

GILBERT S. BAHN

Moorpark

For a succinct summary of the health-care debate, ask people two questions:

1) Do you want the government to pay for all of your health care costs? (Ninety percent will answer “yes.”)

2) Do you want to pay for everyone else’s health care? (Ninety percent will answer “no.”)

RICHARD SHOWSTACK

Newport Beach