Stoll letter: Health care

Thanks for your recent series about the health care system in Idaho. It is always good to foster public dialogue on this long-time, worsening problem.

I noticed, however, that four of your experts are intimately connected with the health insurance industry. Only one expert is a practicing physician. Interestingly, while the experts all quoted similar facts, only the practicing physician drew the correct conclusion. This is not surprising as the correct conclusion would drastically shrink the insurance industry. The goal in health care reform should not be to guarantee a profit for insurance companies but rather to provide care to all Idahoans and to reimburse primary care providers at a level to ensure participation.

Perhaps a future panel could include one insurance executive and four practicing physicians. These could include physicians who have delivered emergency care at night to patients without health insurance or a means to pay for the service and a primary care physician who has provided care to a remote Idaho village.

Let’s just get some other points of view.

This story was originally published October 4, 2017 at 10:18 PM with the headline "Stoll letter: Health care."