Letter: Job losses highlight health care dysfunction - Bennington Banner

To the Editor:

Remember how Democratic candidates told us again and again during the presidential primaries that Americans love their private health insurance, love their employer-sponsored plan, and it shouldn't be taken away from them? Well, the "radical left" didn't take away health insurance, and health care, from as many as 27 million Americans. Mass unemployment from the pandemic, and Trump's mishandling of it, did that. How many of those 27 million love their health care now?

Tying health care to employment is intrinsically stupid. Being able to take care of our health should not be a privilege, but a right, and it makes absolutely no sense to tie that right to employment! It is about time that we take health care back from the insurance companies. It is about time we create a universal health care system in America that meets the health needs of its citizens, rather than the health of the insurers. Their concern is the health of their firms, not the health of the people.

Universal health care won't prevent or cure a pandemic, but will give us the best chance of physically and financially surviving one. Nobody would be worrying about paying for health care. We wouldn't have millions of people unable to visit a doctor or hospital because they are uninsured or can't afford their insurance's deductible and co-pays. What better time than now, as we still struggle to recover from the coronavirus, to create what Bernie has championed for decades: Medicare for All!

Charlie Murphy,

Bennington