Letters: Obamacare or Medicare for all?

Re “Obamacare’s dismal stats,” Editorial, Nov. 14

With federally fabricated smoke and mirrors, and with the persistent use of unintended consequences as excuses, Obamacare is truly a sinking ship. No amount of spin can save it now. We must look to reparation.

The Times’ editorial could have noted that many people who are leaving the individual insurance market or who are being dumped by their carriers have policies that conform to the Affordable Care Act. Health insurers have relentlessly increased the individual policy premiums to the point of being unaffordable.

The Times also mentions that the insurance options on the exchanges for small businesses have been narrowed. This “narrow network” tactic is nothing new; it has been used by health insurers since preferred provider organizations in the 1970s began to discount reimbursements to physicians and hospitals. This had nothing to do with quality or efficiency, but it did limit access to care and effectively rationed care to the individual.

We should not sit idly by. The time has come to eliminate the complicit health insurers, place price controls on medications and medical equipment, and make hospitalization affordable to all. We need single-payer now: Medicare for all.

Jerome P. Helman, MD

Venice

My daughter and I have been without healthcare for three years following my loss of employer-provided insurance. In that period, I have paid handsomely for those times when my mother-ministrations were not sufficient and I had to seek the care of a very expensive doctor.

I’ve been waiting eagerly for Obamacare for the two of us since the law was enacted in 2010.

Did I run into problems when I first tried to sign up in California? I did. Did I persevere? I did. Did I finally get through? I did.

In January, I’ll be able to take care of a condition I’ve ignored for the last two years, and my college-age daughter will be covered as well. Although the subsidy certainly helps, I will be paying something for coverage we haven’t had for years. To those who cry foul, I say “score.”

Is the social contract so forgotten as to be irrelevant?

Melanie Savage

Pasadena

I remember hearing about how Obamacare would keep our insurers from dropping us when we get sick. It sure does.

Now they are dropping us before we get sick. That’s what I call progress.

Don Hartman

Toluca Lake

Someone please explain how allowing a person to keep a policy that is inadequate will be any different from having no insurance at all when the time comes that that insurance policy won’t cover a serious illness. Someone should also explain why we have allowed insurers to sabotage the process by reducing access to doctors and hospitals and selling policies they would have to end up canceling at a critical time.

Finally, please explain why some of our elected representatives are so willing to approve the actions of the insurance companies and join in the sabotage. Why are they not telling their constituents the benefits of the healthcare law and urging them to sign up?

The Affordable Care Act’s insurance policies are much better than what we have had for many years.

Bobby Fraker

Hacienda Heights

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