Letters: Obamacare’s inefficiencies

Re “Silence of the insurers,” Opinion, Dec. 17

Jonah Goldberg hit the target in describing one of the many foibles of Obamacare: the fact that insurance companies’ relationship with the government is put in the limelight, rather than the relationship between patients and their doctors or healthcare providers.

When the insurance industry and the federal government — both great examples of bureaucracy’s shortfalls — get together, the result is a supernova of inefficiency. It doesn’t matter if these two bastions of red tape are friendly or at odds with each other; the public loses.

The optimal solution for this country’s far-from-perfect healthcare system must have minimal government and insurance company involvement. We mustn’t look toward Obamacare, what was in place previously or to a single-payer solution but toward direct primary care and a patient-provider payment system.

Lucas Klein

Claremont

Goldberg’s column raising the possibility of a revolt by health insurers sets a high standard for triviality.

The so-called public option Goldberg mentions as a way to do away with health insurers would have been a good step, but Democrats, with few exceptions, never considered a single-payer system used by many industrialized countries. Obamacare does put money in the pockets of private insurers — and since when has Goldberg, of all people, ever complained about that?

Goldberg leaves out all discussion of Republican efforts to undercut affordable health insurance, which would require him to be nuanced and even fair. Who’s stuffing his mouth with gold?

Phil Brimble

Los Angeles

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