Re: “WA Medicare Advantage buyers scramble amid Humana, Optum dispute” (Feb. 27, Enterprise):
Kevin Nollette’s tortured effort to discover a new physician or new Medicare insurance coverage plan reveals the unhappy reality concerning the U.S. well being care system: It’s completely designed to maximise earnings and profit-seeking conduct (insurers gobble up hospitals, hospitals gobble up medical practices, enterprise capitalists gobble all of them up) however poorly designed to make it straightforward for individuals to get the care they want from the suitable care supplier on the proper time for an reasonably priced value.
Why would we make individuals attempt to decipher purposely advanced (and ever-changing) supplier networks, co-payment and coinsurance schemes, and repair exclusions (Will I want ear care or eye care this 12 months?)? Just one purpose: earnings.
It’s well beyond time for us to affix the remainder of the civilized world and undertake a single common well being care plan for everybody.
Aaron Katz, Anacortes (retired College of Washington public well being college)
