Dr. Linda Petter rails against Obamacare and demands that we repeal it and replace it with – what?

Dr. Petter offers no alternatives in her column (“Healthcare Act will be

a costly jolt”, Auburn Reporter, Aug. 17). The critics of Obamacare in Congress have not proposed anything at all; they have only criticized Obamacare.

Romney and Ryan have proposed to replace the current Medicare payment system with private insurance.

But let’s look at this for a minute. Dr. Petter says the current Medicare reimbursements to providers are too small, so presumably the private insurance companies are going to give larger reimbursements. And the private insurance companies are notorious for having very high administrative costs compared to Medicare.

In addition, they need to earn a profit. So they are going to give higher reimbursements, pay higher costs and give a profit to their shareholders, and yet they will reduce total costs? Please tell me how this can work, I don’t get it.

I admit that Obamacare is far from perfect. However, it is at least a plan that will provide coverage to many of those who do not have it now. I propose that we keep Obamacare until someone comes up with something better.

Dr. Petter also claims that the U.S. is the world leader in health care. The fact is that we have 50 million citizens with no health care coverage, and our cost per person (including those with no coverage) is twice as high as any other nation on Earth.

How can we think of this as being world leadership?

– H. Peter (Pete) Beaupain