NY should move to single-payer system
To the Editor:
I appreciate the extensive interviews which were incorporated into Douglass Dowty’s article on Upstate hospital suing patients for medical debt (“How NY state, Upstate Medical haul thousands of sick and poor into court for little gain,” Dec. 14, 2023). It is certainly a tragedy, as is the United States’ entire healthcare system. It takes good care of wealthy people and people with excellent union contracts, and doesn’t do a terrible job on people with Medicaid. But it places an enormous burden on working individuals who are invited to spend a ridiculous amount for health insurance with high deductibles and copays. This frequentlywill not pay the whole bill. It broke my heart to see my patients forgo needed care because they could not afford it. Dowty shows the rest of the story for those who get the care but cannot pay.
This does not happen in the rest of the industrialized world. All these countries have universal healthcare coverage, either through mandated and highly regulated private insurance, or through a nationalized system. They all spend less for healthcare as a nation and have better health indices than the U.S.
We could start by throwing out the politicians who prevent this from happening. The New York state Legislature for many years has blocked the New York Health Act, which would provide universal healthcare coverage. You can see if your legislator is a sponsor of S7590 / A07897.
Dr. Jim Greenwald
Syracuse
Make providers accept what insurance will pay
To the Editor:
I have had a large amount of medical care this year. I have great insurance which has paid for all of it with no problems and no copays because the providers have agreed to accept those payments as payment in full. So of the over $100,000 they billed, they were reimbursed at about one-third of that. Those providers should be required to do the same for those without insurance, and bill and expect payment at the most favorable rates they accept from insurance companies instead of the obscene amounts they bill.
Michael W. Reed
Liverpool