Single payer won’t work

By William Clark, Las Vegas

Friday, Aug. 4, 2017 | 2 a.m.

In response to a recent letter to the editor from a writer endorsing the single-payer approach to health care, there are many reasons why this will not work. First, who is going to pay for it? Currently about 50 percent of Americans pay no income tax, which means the other 50 percent will be stuck with paying for the program.

What people don’t understand is that the government has no money, just what they take from hard-working Americans. Second, the government currently can’t take care of 7 million veterans, so how are they going to take care of more than 300 million people? Third, the inefficiency of government is well documented. Private businesses must be efficient to make a profit and provide a good product. Otherwise they go out of business. The government has no focus in being profitable or efficient; it just raises taxes.

There is no doubt that our problems with the current health care system need to be fixed. The government needs to reach out to the private health care industry to seek solutions. Leaders also need to reach across the aisle and understand that a bipartisan approach is needed. I find it interesting that neither side has mentioned the need for tort reform, which is one of the biggest factors that could help reduce costs, in addition to selling products over state lines.

On a closing note, the writer does not seem to realize that more than 58,000 Canadians came to the U.S. last year for health care they could not get in Canada.