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.