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Letter: Insurers were the problem

Let’s be honest. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are socialistic programs. I think that’s good. Many don’t.

The problem with the Affordable Care Act is that it’s not socialistic enough. As originally drafted, the ACA excluded the insurance companies. It was a single-source program. You pay your premiums to the government and the government doles out the benefits.

The insurance companies yelled bloody murder: You’re putting us out of business, they said (the insurance companies have so much money they could remain solvent into the next century with nothing coming in). So Obama agreed to include them in the package if they would support the bill. As is their wont, the insurance companies stabbed him in the back and didn’t support the ACA anyway.

What is the big complaint about the ACA? The premiums are too high. Who sets the rates, the government? No, the insurance companies, the worst money-grubbers in the world, set the premium rates.

Health care will never be affordable as long as insurance companies are involved. It is in their best interest that it not be. If moderate income people could pay for health care out of their savings, they wouldn’t need insurance companies.

Future generations will look back on the insurance companies of today with the same contempt that we look back on the money changers of yesteryear. They’ll say, how did they get away with that? They made a fortune selling air.

Fred Malo Jr.
Carbondale


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