Health care: Profit-hungry middle men are the problem

“300 million reasons to fix health care,” (TNT, 7/16).

I didn’t like this column by Jay Ambrose. He lost me in the first paragraph, which gave a blanket condemnation of “leftest policy tactics” and Obamacare. I don’t know what those policy tactics are, and I love the Affordable Care Act.

Forget about the spineless Democrats or the heartless Republicans. I place the blame on the for-profit health care industry. The ACA is the only policy that exposes the evil truth that health care in America is not about health, it is about profits.

I sincerely believe there is plenty enough money in this economy to provide excellent preventative, chronic and acute health care to everyone living in our country. The problem is that it would mean eliminating all the insurance middlemen, controlling the costs of pharmaceutical medicine, cancelling a few medical patents and regulating --yes, regulating! -- the profits permitted to hospitals.

Ambrose said the Republican health care plan present “rejuvenating ideas for health care.” I think his choice of words is terribly unfortunate.

Here is an interesting idea. How about for every million dollars earned by a big health-care company, it had to put in $100,000 to support rural health care?

This story was originally published July 21, 2017 at 5:18 PM with the headline "Health care: Profit-hungry middle men are the problem."