Health Care for All: A Social Justice Issue, See Letters to Editor in Sarasota Herald Tribune by Jack Duffy and Irving Bennett

AA Bennett’s Lett to Ed 3/31/17

TO MAKE AMERICA REALLY GREAT AGAIN

and help President Trump solve his biggest problem

and the biggest problem for the country.

Instead of being advised by his children or other White House staffers and other government officials, he would be far ahead to listen to Irving Bennett—Lett to Ed, HT, Fri 3/31-- who offers a health plan far superior to and coming from Congress, his cabinet, his Health Secretary Price. What he so clearly and brilliantly lays out is a plan so sensible, workable, affordable, so beneficial to so many Americans, a plan so appealing that it just should fly.

His plan of expanding Medicare to include all Americans, a single-payer, government sponsored plan could be implemented under our existing structures, without ‘re-inventing the wheel’ again, and would be the best way to improve our healthcare, thereby moving us up from # 17 on the list of health status of the world’s nations, and down a bit from #1 on the list of % of GDP paid for healthcare.

This guy Bennett comes out looking like a genius, albeit not alone in suggesting this solution, as there seems to be some movement in Congress to take an other look at such a possibility, including a ‘pre-candidate,’ ‘pre-president’ Donald Trump in a very lucid interview shown on CNN’s Fareed Z. TV Sunday, 4/2, in which he then proposed the government-sponsored, single-payer, universal plan for the country, as the only logical way to solve once and for all this colossal American problem.

Some will probably complain that this solution is BAD, because it approaches socialized healthcare. However, both plans that are now under discussion, the ACA (aka: Obamacare), and the Ryan-Trump plan are each seen as so BAD, and so odious to the two separate halves of the Congress, that neither would pass without a blood bath-filled civil war, that they both seem BAD, making them look much worse than the single-payer plan, forcing Congress to choose the “least BAD plan,” the one that will benefit most of our citizens….unless you are one of the fortunate ones in the top 2-3% of income-earners, or happen to be an insurance company executive (some of whom will of necessity be chosen to help RUN the plan, not OWN the plan.)

If Trump could revert to his former proposal and encourage implementation of Bennett’s solution

we could at long last get this overwhelming, gut-wrenching problem behind us—please, God—and leave one less stupendous problem to plague my grandchildren and great grandchildren. And the moment he signs the bill, they can begin carving the face of Donald Trump on Mt. Rushmore.

John H. Duffy

282 Bainbridge Dr.

Nokomis, FL 34275 

(608) 444-2987

Venice

Medicare for all

What’s the big deal in solving the health care problem? Most of our nation agrees that Medicare has the right formula for providing health care for seniors, so why not expand it to cover all of the population?

The mechanism (a nice word for bureaucracy) is already in place. It would be like expanding a store to take more customers. No need to build a new store.

And getting a funding method would be easy, too. Just eliminate the cap on the amount of income to be taxed for Social Security. This way, those who earn less would pay less and those who earn more would pay more. But all would pay the same percentage.

Ah, yes, that “little” item on drug costs: Just remove the current restriction that the government not be allowed to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies. You will see the drug prices come down as they should.

Irving Bennett