Letters to the Editoris a periodic feature. Wewelcome all commentsand can merely post a different. We edit for size and clarity and require stout names.

In step with Sarah Jane Tribble’s yarn about increasing enrollment in Medicare Succor plans — and the increasing concerns — a senior policy adviser on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation weighed in on X, formerly identified as Twitter:

— Katherine Hempstead, Princeton, Novel Jersey

Medicare Succor: To Whose Succor?

Sarah Jane Tribble did a unbelievable job reporting on Medicare Succor plans and essentially the well-known limitations within them that leave folks usually screwed (“Older American citizens Remark They Feel Trapped in Medicare Succor Plans,” Jan. 5).

Don’t put out of your mind presidential hopeful Nikki Haley at one of the well-known Republican debates acknowledged that Medicare Succor plans are what nearly all of seniors desire and desires to be expanded.

That next morning, I at once called the South Carolina Democratic Celebration and equipped that they desires to be standing on their desks demonizing her because they know stout effectively that low-earnings, underserved Black folks in South Carolina rural ZIP codes wouldn’t be eligible for Succor plans the build care is linked to ZIP code.

Disgrace on all parties and candidates who by no methodology fee single-payer universal effectively being care (except Inexperienced Celebration candidates).

Factual news legend, Ms. Tribble.

—Steve Scuderi, Chicago

A effectively being services and products researcher within the Department of Properly being Policy at Vanderbilt University furthermore praised the article on social media:

— Stacie Dusetzina, Nashville, Tennessee

The founder and president of Healthcare Navigation, a consultancy, added recommendation for effectively being insurance coverage consumers on X:

— Maura Carley, Darien, Connecticut

Don’t Blame Patients for Unaffordable Properly being Care

This op-ed (not article) by KFF Properly being Files reporter Julie Appleby shames the broken-down Olympic athlete for her monetary misfortune and for being unable to administer her funds and effectively being — whereas in uncomfortable health, injured, or chronically disabled (“Mary Lou Retton’s Clarification of Properly being Insurance Takes Some Somersaults,” Jan. 12).

The writing implies that an American user or citizen would possibly possibly perhaps also merely furthermore be a extremely “winning person in your diversified existence” nonetheless “not understand American effectively being care” and that monetary misfortune would possibly possibly bask in been steer clear off if most tasty Mary Lou Retton had been more assertive, instructed, and shiny.

Appleby states that “Retton excelled in landing sophisticated moves as a gymnast, nonetheless she would possibly possibly perhaps also merely bask in missed the bar when it came to buying insurance coverage coverage.”

This belief — especially among effectively being journalists and newsrooms maintaining the effectively being care mannequin within the U.S. — that industrial effectively being insurance coverage guarantees pick up admission to to effectively being care, or that the Cheaper Care Act is affordable and guarantees pick up admission to — is a spurious one. ACA plans are largely managed by interior most industrial effectively being insurance coverage companies. The alternate enterprise mannequin is “Denial of Care.” That is how insurers convey returns on investment to shareholders year after year, quarter after quarter, and profit from illness, injury, incapacity, and demise. This mannequin as of this present day is soundless actual. And, with PxDx machine and artificial intelligencecompanies are actually denying sanatorium therapy claims at a fee of 100 per 1.2 seconds.

To counsel paying for industrial effectively being insurance coverage promises sanatorium therapy is editorially irresponsible. To counsel a citizen used to be not shiny adequate to navigate the barbaric and merciless industrial effectively being insurance coverage alternate’s non-blueprint of effectively being care is reprehensible and horrifying. Essentially the most tasty one who “missed the bar” used to be Appleby and her misinformed editors.

KFF Properly being Files has been partnering with NPR and CBS for almost seven years on the “Bill of the Month” sequence. In some unspecified time in the future of that time, doctor suicide has reached file highs, medical worker strikes bask in hit file highs, medical invoice bankruptcies bask in reached file highs, medical residents across the country are unionizing to guard sufferers’ rights and affected person security, and yet, the entire whereas, industrial effectively being insurance coverage alternate earnings bask in reached file highs. And their monetary product divisions continue to invest in portfolios that don’t bask in the relaxation to achieve with effectively being care.

By every size and metric, during the final 40 years, the industrial effectively being insurance coverage alternate has led to preventable wound and demise — intentionally, for profit. And soundless, Appleby suggests it’s the fault of sufferers that they’ll not manage to pay for sanatorium therapy? What, namely, does Appleby counsel sufferers enjoy Retton “attain better?”

It’s time to originate reporting responsibly and accurately about statewide single-payer resolutions and legislation across the US and the national (improved) Medicare for All Act of 2023-24 on the federal stage.

Commercial effectively being insurance coverage is just not effectively being care.

— Kimberly J. Soenen, government director of Some Of us and managing editor of The Gorgeous Print, Colossal Marais, Minnesota

This text drew swift consideration on social media. Here’s a sampling of readers’ posts on X, reacting both to the KFF Properly being Files and NPR versions:

— Greg Fann, Temecula, California

— Jody Johnson, Dallas

I do know too effectively the market effectively being scam that leaves so many of us with out insurance coverage. I even bask in a fastened earnings of $29,000. With a bronze-stage notion, which methodology a $10,000 deductible, and $473 per month for premiums. Are you calling this reasonable? The fact I am paying $10,000 before my insurance coverage kicks in, plus month-to-month premiums, it’s $15,000 out-of-pocket — a pocket I don’t bask in unless I am homeless. That is the scam.

— Brenda Frantz, Hinesville, Georgia

— Victoria Colliver, Oakland, California

— Lance Depraved, Carta Valley, Texas