Regarding Cela Kruse’s Nov. 30 letter “Premiums rise as benefits change,” I recognize her need to blame someone for the premium increases she’s experiencing, but she has her sights on the wrong target.
President Barack Obama and Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., in proposing and voting for the Affordable Care Act, were hoping for nothing more than to provide health insurance for the millions of uninsured Americans in danger of dying for want of affordable medical care and to prevent the many bankruptcies that occur through stratospherically high medical costs that only the wealthy and the insured can provide for themselves and their families.
Unless Kruse’s motive in writing is simply to reinforce the Republican Party’s mantra, she’d do the community a greater service by pinpointing the real cause of the upward march of her health care premiums: the relentless, merciless increases in the cost of health care itself. It’s a Wild West out there, an uncontrolled profit-making machine that rolls over and crushes anyone in its path unfortunate enough to be unprotected. It’s a market where prices rise exponentially, often with no proportional increases in result, and where government allows American families to be churned into financial mulch in the ever-grinding maw of almighty capitalism.
The limitless greed of the health care industry and Congress’ failure to rein in costs are the alpha and omega of Kruse’s problem, not the ACA.