May 9, 2017
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Here is something that will prove your deal-making ability: single-payer, universal healthcare. It will make you an American hero.
Health care expenditures represent more than one-sixth of the national economy. Fixing the system will have wide-ranging and profoundly positive effects on the whole country.
Put your deal-making foot down. Cut through the confusing rhetoric of “rights” versus “privileges.” Ignore the callous, anti-government “Freedom Caucus.”
From a business and transactional perspective, a single-payer, universal health care system is just the right thing to do. Here are some of the main reasons:
Better health. Americans would take better care of themselves. Attention would shift to prevention and away from last-minute, more-expensive emergency care.
More productivity. A healthier, more hopeful populace would be a huge boost to national productivity. As the fight rages over the ACA and the AHCA, lives are lost and families are ruined. Health care expense is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy. Our national neglect has led to other problems that continue to mount—like mental illness, homelessness and despair—problems that affect all of us directly or indirectly.
Higher efficiency. A single-payer system would have more leverage to bring down health care costs (especially for pharmaceuticals!) and would eliminate the duplicative overhead of the current, reverse-dog-pile of 1,300 profit-taking insurance companies. There would be an immediate savings of more than $350 billion of duplicative overhead cost, waste and insurance company profit-taking.
Job creation. A single-payer system will ease the health insurance burden of American employers. With higher employee productivity and lower corporate costs, profits will rise and more jobs will be created.
Lower, simpler taxes. Over time, with the elimination of redundant overhead, greater efficiency, lower health care costs and risk spreading among the whole populace, the direct and indirect taxes and costs associated with health care and health insurance will come down. The tax code will be simplified.
Freedom. A single-payer, universal system rationalizes pricing and puts health care decision-making back in the hands of health care providers and their patients, and removes it from the profit-driven bureaucracy of insurance company MBAs and administrators.
Apply your vaunted deal-making prowess to eliminating the inefficiency, exploitation and waste of our American health care system.
Time is of the essence. Among the millions of Americans still without health insurance, at least 120 are dying every day.
Thank you in advance,
Jerry Sturgill 