Letters to the Editor for Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Writer: Obamacare should be killed
In his Dec. 7 letter to the editor, L.H. Symonds accuses opponents of Obamacare of “rehashing myths, half truths, and lies perpetuated by the insurance giants ... .” It’s not clear if Symonds has studied the monstrous bills percolating through Congress (I have), or if he has any background in economics with which to challenge the concerns of business owners, but he certainly plays fast and loose with the facts. Let me take him up on a few:

* The companies that provide our health insurance are not engines of profitability. According to a recent survey by a finance professor at the University of Michigan, the gross profit of the private health insurance companies was 3.3 percent, ranking 86th among the industries surveyed. Symonds may erroneously confuse profit with the “Medical Loss Ratio,” but there is no justification to claim that “the insurance giants want to protect their profits without regard to what is truly best for our citizens.” By the way, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce does not oppose Obamacare “to protect the interests of the insurance industry”; it rightly opposes the costs that Obamacare will inflict on the entire economy.

* The Senate reform legislation proposes to reduce Medicare funding by $460 billion over the period scored, which cannot avoid compromising the services available to seniors. As a senior myself, covered by a private Medicare Advantage plan, I am well aware that this option will be gutted if Obamacare passes. As for AARP, this organization derives the bulk of its revenues as an insurance agent competing with Medicare Advantage, so it is no surprise that they endorse “reform”; they long ago lost any credibility as a representative of seniors’ interests.

* I’m proud to know Thomas Johnson, and his comment about the impact of “reform” on his ability to hire new employees is spot on.

Both House and Senate bills mandate a single menu of benefits for all (“Qualified Health Benefits Plan”), regardless of need, together with provisions for guaranteed issue and prohibition of lifetime benefit limits which will inevitably drive up premium costs (Anthem estimates a 96 percent increase in Virginia); if a business does not provide insurance, it may be subject to a fine. Typical of the largess of our politicians, The News & Advance reports in the same issue as Symonds’ letter that the Senate bill will include coverage for “acupuncturists, dietary supplement makers, and other alternative health practitioners” regardless of proven medical value. Economic and competitive constraints make it very difficult for most businesses to absorb increased personnel costs while maintaining viability.

* I’m also proud to know Scott Garrett, and Symonds’ ad hominem dismissal of Scott’s remarks as from a “political animal” are particularly offensive. As we all know, Scott is a retired surgeon and an honorable and public-spirited citizen who is well qualified to discuss health care practice; while his opponent in the recent election is married to my cardiologist, her background is in political, not medical, science.

Symonds says “we have an opportunity to change some, if not all, of a severely broken system.” I fully agree with this sentiment, but Obamacare fails to address the worst fault of the existing system of medical care: the unsustainability of its costs. Nowhere in the bills before Congress is there mention of tort reform or similar means to reduce waste of resources without compromising quality.

What the bills do is make a bad situation worse with proliferating bureaucracies, absence of individual choice in benefits covered, and a mandate that infringes on basic individual liberty. Obamacare deserves to be killed.
ROBERT BATCHELDER
Lynchburg