Dear Editor:

As an ACA navigator, I heard most of the people I worked with say they can’t wait to be 65 years old to enroll in Medicare. It makes me wonder why people have to wait at all.

With private health care premiums spiraling out of control, Medicare covers the oldest and sickest at a fraction of the overhead expense of “free-market” insurance. The Ellsworth American editors (April 6, 2017) claimed, “Economics 101 taught us that competition benefits the consumer by reducing costs …” That may be true of many commodities, but it just doesn’t work in health care. In fact, much of the overhead cost is spent on advertising to compete. It begs the question: Should health care even be a profit-making commodity?

The EA editors’ solution is to put our sickest 5 percent in a “high-risk” pool. Indeed, pre-ACA, most states used some version of this concept. But studies showed the pools covered just a fraction of the number of people with pre-existing conditions who lacked insurance and ended up costing patients and states more than they could afford. Chronic conditions account for 86 percent of health care spending. Why wait until people are sick to offer coverage? A single-payer health care system like Medicare would ensure everyone primary and preventative care that would limit expensive and debilitating conditions such as diabetes, heart failure and even many cancers.

The United States currently spends far more on health care with poorer results than any other developed country in the world. This is wrong and we need to fix it! Single-payer systems have been shown to contain costs while providing universal care.

That’s what “Medicare for all” can do. Right now we have this opportunity at both the federal and state levels. In the U.S. House, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) sponsored HR 676 and here in Maine Sen. Geoff Gratwick (D-Penobscot County) and Rep. Heidi Brooks (D-Lewiston) sponsored LD 1274. They would establish Medicare for all, one federally and one as a state solution. I say we call our legislators and urge support for solutions that save lives and money. It’s the right thing to do.

Lynn Cheney

Blue Hill