An Open Letter to Bernie Sanders
Dear Mr. Sanders,
I, like many concerned Americans appreciate your very real concern for the actual problems confronting the majority of Americans. I agree in theory with the concept and dire necessity for a single payer healthcare system. For Medicare to cover everyone and not bankrupt this country, however, the enormous amount of graft involved in the program must be eliminated. Lobbies are currently taking thirty to as much as sixty cents in overpayment out of every dollar spent by the program for pharmaceuticals , durable goods, oxygen, laboratory testing and outpatient services. In addition, Medicare contributors will need to stop paying for luxury medications for indigent patients that the contributors cannot possibly afford for themselves.
In short, the United States Congress has never been proven trustworthy or competent enough to run Medicare or any other government program. To make matters even worse, of course, the partisan Republican Supreme Court majority seems to have taken over the job of writing new laws not only from their fellow liberal justices but also from the incompetent legislators in Washington D.C. Under "Citizens United," not only have campaign finance laws been strictly forbidden in this country, but lobbies have been given leave to openly purchase any candidate they can afford, from judges to presidents.
Therefore, any single payer healthcare system in this country must be run by well regulated private insurance companies- whether the system is owned by the federal government or by the companies themselves. It cannot, under any circumstances, be run by "prostitute" Congressmen and Congresswomen that can legally accept unlimited payments from their generous "Johns." And, most importantly, the funds must be taken from the graduated income tax and other parts of the general fund, rich people paying more than poor people, not from a specialized system of rape known as the "Medicare tax." While much of the Medicare/Social Security fund is typically raided by greedy politicians to give to their "procurors," the true name for so many lobbies, an equal amount is wasted on the massively abused Medicaid system. If everyone has the same healthcare access, millions of poor people will not have to exaggerate their disabilities to obtain an insulting pittance from the government when all they need is the health insurance coverage. And, businesses can save billions of dollars in healthcare costs, enabling them to pay higher wages and expand their operations.
Yours truly,
Allen Finkelstein, D.O.
2/5/2016
