Why $32 trillion is a good deal

Re “Nothing ‘extremist’ here,” Opinion, Sept. 19

Healthcare punditry has descended into mudslinging. The right, the left and the center are lost in the sea of regretful policy that has morally and fiscally bankrupted us.

Physicians are burdened by documentation as no other country requires, especially with electronic records. When was the last time your family physician had the time to talk with you uninterrupted?

The only “beacon of hope” is with price and profit controls in a single, transparent system outside market forces. We must include physicians in the discussion for a healthcare public utility removed enough from government interference and politics.

The bean counters, including columnist Jonah Goldberg, are not physicians. The $32-trillion tab over 10 years he mentions does not give a complete picture. Extrapolating from a Lewin Group study a decade ago of the cost of providing universal coverage in California, hundreds of billions of dollars a year are lost nationally with our present system.

Yes, we can afford a single-payer system as a public utility.

Jerome P. Helman, MD

Venice

Goldberg tries to equate Republicans hell-bent on stripping healthcare from millions of Americans with Democrats who propose “Medicare for all.”

How is a governmentrun system so extreme when it exists in some form in practically every other developed economy and appears to deliver better outcomes at lower costs? Perhaps Goldberg believes that Americans are incapable of doing large, important things, whereas liberals still hold onto the notion of American exceptionalism.

As for the quoted $32trillion cost over 10 years, Goldberg does not say anything about the offsetting reductions in insurance premiums, the fact that the scope of the initiative would likely be reduced by the time it became law, and that private insurance would likely continue, albeit at reduced levels, in order to cover things that the government system can’t or won’t pay for.

James Clark

La Cañada Flintridge