Letters To The Editor
Stand Up To Health Insurance Giants

To the editor:

Every week I take care of patients whose care has been delayed, or whose condition has worsened, because they lack health insurance.

In Pennsylvania, about 1.3 million people are uninsured. For those lucky enough to be insured, ever-skimpier private policies helped push almost 30,000 into bankruptcy in 2004.

Our organization favors a single-payer "Medicare For All" system.

Other countries have figured out how to provide high-quality medical care to all their citizens for far less than we spend. Anyone who has dealt with the nightmarish paperwork of giant insurance companies knows why: it's our reliance on private insurers.

Insurance companies stay profitable by keeping those who actually need health care from getting it. To do this, they erect a giant, expensive bureaucracy whose only purpose is to fight claims, issue denials, and screen out the sick.

Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly staffs just to deal with the insurance hassles, and businesses are saddled with the burden of administering their own health benefits.

Research has shown that streamlining payment through a single public payer could save the U.S. more than $350 billion per year. Everybody would be covered for all medically necessary services, including doctor, hospital, long-term, mental health, dental and vision care.

All prescription drugs would be covered. Patients would have free choice of doctor and hospital, and physicians would be unleashed from corporate dictates over patient care.

Opponents resort to cries of "socialized medicine," but don't be fooled. The government would not employ the doctors or the own the hospitals. In a single-payer system, they stay private.

Much hysteria is printed about alleged "rationing" of care in other nations. The truth is that the U.S. rations care more harshly than any other industrialized nation.

Single-payer offers the only real solution for Pennsylvania and our nation. It's time for the politicians to stand up to the insurance giants, in the interest of the public.

Bill Wood, M.D. Physicians for a National

Health Program

Pittsburgh

Landfill Threats

To the editor:

Rural communities across Pennsylvania are being targeting by big-money groups looking to turn your home into a giant toxic trash dump.

A public educational summit on the landfill crisis will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Nov. 9 in Clearfield at the Third Ward Firehall.

If we mean what we say that we're trying to build a better life, stop the "brain drain" of our best and brightest youth leaving the area, and attract high-quality businesses, then we need to act like it and use all of the resources at our disposal to stop the sort of development that strictly contradicts those goals.

An informed, educated and motivated citizen can make a difference!

We're overrun right now with attempts to place massive landfills in our region. We should not have to be dealing with life like this, sitting in the crosshairs as we are. We deserve better. For information, call 717-234-1545 or 814-553- 9372.

Dennis Biancuzzo

Harrisburg

Letters Policy

The Endeavor believes that the free exchange of ideas is the foundation of our democratic society.

Stewardship of our community and the effective operation of our government institutions depend on a broad spectrum of voices being heard, viewpoints expressed and interests considered.

An important component of that dialogue is the local newspaper, which not only informs its readers, but also provides a forum through which citizens can express their viewpoints.

The Endeavor welcomes letters to the editor for publication each week on page two.

Our policy for letters is as follows:

--no inflammatory, vituperative or actionable content will be published;

--we reserve the right to edit letters for brevity, spelling and grammatical errors;

--letters should be brief (preferably under 500 words).

--letters than have already appeared in other newspapers will be accommodated on a space-available basis.

The Endeavor welcomes the expressions of viewpoints from all of its readers.