He Gets It

The following letter to the editor appeared in the August 19, 2009 Columbus Dispatch:

Health insurance has no free market

The Senate Finance Committee plans to support a health-insurance bill that would make us buy health insurance, but which omits the public option.

The federal government already has engineered a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class taxpayers to the Wall Street investment bankers. Now it looks like we'll throw another enormous pile of money at the medical-industrial complex, especially the private health-insurance carriers.

Why on earth would anybody believe that health insurers actually compete for premiums? In my case, I am a few years shy of retirement. I have a $5,200-deductible health-care policy from a private carrier. I have never made a claim. I have never stayed overnight in a hospital.

I exercise regularly. My health is generally good, but I would not qualify for a different policy.

My carrier this year increased my premium by $295.23 per month. That's the increase, not the total. The premium has almost quadrupled in a little over four years. The company knows full well I will continue to pay increasing premiums because I fear the Big One will hit before I qualify for Medicare. Others may call that the free market, but I call it extortion.

There is no such thing as a free market in health insurance, and there never has been.

In my view, a compulsory health-insurance bill without a public option is worse than no bill at all. President Barack Obama should stand his ground and fight.

WILLIAM C. MARTIN
Jackson