Galloping oligopoly
I agree with Daniel McLaughlin that patients “are demanding a more responsive, cost-effective system” (“Moving beyond Medicare to build the future American health system,” Jan. 19). But the system he proposes – a system run by giant insurance companies and hospital-clinic chains – will be neither responsive nor cost-effective.
How do we know? Because that’s the system we have now.
We have an expensive, sclerotic system dominated by a few insurance and hospital cartels. These cartels are governed by neither effective competition nor effective regulation; they are accountable neither to patients nor voters. In this relatively lawless environment, power and money go to the corporations that get big the fastest so they can use that power to control doctors and patients. Addressing this problem with the tepid solutions McLaughlin proposes, such as “public reporting of quality and health care prices,” is like trying to stop a rhino with a fly swatter.
Rather than express concern about the growing economic and political power of the insurance and hospital behemoths, McLaughlin praises what he calls “this integration movement.” He notes with approval the purchase of 45,000 doctors by United Health Group. He claims insurance companies are “innovative,” they “coordinate care,” they select only “high-quality providers” for their narrow networks, they know good doctors from bad doctors, and “(t)hey are on the front lines of the digital transformation of health care delivery and sophisticated consumer engagement.” The last claim is indecipherable; the others are not true.
Nor is it true that “this integration movement” is reducing administrative costs. According to the Jan. 7 edition of Annals of Internal Medicine, the U.S. now devotes 34 percent of every dollar we spend on health care to the administration of our byzantine system, up from 31 percent in 1999.
Galloping oligopoly – what McLaughlin calls the “integration movement” – is the problem, not the solution.
Kip Sullivan, Minneapolis
Welcome!
I am the pastor at Community United Church of Christ in St. Paul Park. We are next door to Cottage Grove. I was dismayed and shocked to read the story about our neighbors in Cottage Grove. We, too, are experiencing decline in worship attendance, membership and in giving. However, I cannot imagine ever asking our faithful members, regardless of age, to worship someplace else for two years during the planting of a new church.
In the United Church of Christ we believe that Christ did not turn others away and neither do we. We embrace diversity! We are an Open and Affirming Progressive Christian Church And that includes people from all walks of life, regardless of political affiliation, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, race, ethnicity and ableism — you are welcome here! — We invite the members of Grove UMC to worship with us, or/and to use our building as a gathering place. We are located at 1145 Summit Avenue, St. Paul Park (between Cottage Grove and Woodbury)
Rev. Janice Steele, pastor
Community United Church of Christ, St. Paul Park
Doing what he promised
How bad is President Trump? I’ve read and heard people calling him the worst president ever.
I disagree. My President Trump has the economy booming and unemployment at 50-year lows, not just in general, but among minority groups as well. My President just signed USMCA for improved trade with Canada and Mexico, and he also recently signed phase one of a trade agreement with China. My president has the pace of illegal entry into the USA slowing down. My president has our country the most secure it has been in years thanks to a strong military. The stock market and my 401k are in super shape. But most importantly of all, my president is doing as president what he promised he would.
Regardless if you like what he’s doing or not, for this fact alone he should be praised and recognized as being one of our best, not one of our worst presidents.
Richard Burton, Ramsey
‘Expulsion trial’
Top of the front page last week, big headline: “Impeachment witnesses possible.”
Ah, sigh. I’ll hear and see it hundreds of times again today, and tomorrow and tomorrow … Nothing much a St. Paul word nerd or a mid-sized Midwest newspaper can do about it. But you never know. Protest and maybe just one writer could start a corrective cataract.
“Impeachment” is over. Like it or not, “45” has been impeached.
What is now going on is the “Presidential Removal Trial.” Now, part of the problem is that people want a specific, jargonish term. “Removal” may not quite hit the spot. However, there is a verb that does mean “remove from office”: “expel.” ” It is in fact used that way in Article I, Section 5, of the U.S. Constitution, which says that either House of Congress may “expel a member.”
The noun that derives from “expel” is “expulsion.” Unfortunately, there really isn’t a derivative adjective that isn’t a bit clumsy. I personally like “expelation” for a noun and “expelatory” for an adjective. I’m pretty sure they’re neologisms (“new words”), but they have a nice ring of contemporary tech argot which might make them popular if any commentator cared to use them.
Anyway, though I have some aversion to using nouns as adjectives, “Expulsion Trial” does at least capture the gravity of the process more than “Impeachment.”
And, for those who’ve had over and over to explain to the nescient the two-step procedure as prescribed in the Constitution it might just relieve a little of that tedium to hear step two commonly referred to as an “expulsion.”
Probably not. Ah, sigh…
Edward Baxter, St. Paul
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