Doctors Call Out Monopoly Capitalism In Health Care

 To the Editor:

Re “For Democrats, Tough Options on Health Care” (New York Times front page, Sept. 21):

Drug and health insurance companies have manufactured the congressional “clash” over whether to improve Medicare or expand Medicaid.

Pharma lobbying will apparently keep price controls out of the budget bill, eliminating Medicare savings that the bill would have deployed to simultaneously help seniors (by adding vision, hearing and dental coverage to Medicare) and the poor (by implementing the Medicaid expansion nationwide).

Meanwhile, according to Congress’ own Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, private insurers’ Medicare Advantage plans continue to drain the Treasury, inflating taxpayers’ costs by more than $500 annually for each enrollee.

Our country could afford universal coverage if we constrained drug companies’ price gouging and trimmed the $600 billion in useless administrative overhead inflicted by private insurers.

The real health policy clash in America is that between corporate profits and patients’ needs.

David U. Himmelstein
Steffie Woolhandler
East Chatham, N.Y.
The writers, both physicians, are distinguished professors at Hunter College and lecturers at Harvard Medical School.