DEAR EDITOR:

In a recent syndicated column, conservative George Will berated the North Carolina government for not allowing a doctor to get an MRI machine for his practice. Will seems to believe markets are a better way to judge society’s needs than bureaucrats (government officials). As his point is well-taken that the government is protecting the marketplace for the businesses that already have an MRI, but he fails to understand what you get in a government dedicated to “the profit motive” of business and not the services needed by the people.

We have the worse system for delivering health care in the world. Our country has failed to provide needed care because the people running our system do it for the profit motive and not to deliver care. The U.S. spends at least double per capita what other democratic “socialist” governments do, and they provide 100 percent care for their people. We do not come close. No one goes bankrupt in Canada because of medical bills, but here it is a common practice.

The Republicans have been able to push the lie that all it takes is for a business that makes money to figure out and solve our problems in any area of our society. That is simply not true. The profit motive does not work in delivering health care, education and living wages. Our country is living proof.

The main reason that health care is not distributed well in this country is because of our profit motive insurance system. Health insurance companies care only about making money. The way they do that is by denying care so they don’t have to pay for it and put that money in their pockets. They do not care if what they deny ends up hurting or killing people, which it does. Health care is not their concern; making money is. This is why our system of health care will never deliver the actual care needed as is done in other advanced countries. Cuba is even better at health care than we are, and that’s nothing to be proud of.

The reason is simple, health insurance companies care about delivering profits to their CEOs and stock holders. They do not care about delivering care to patients. That is why they have pre-existing condition clauses and caps on how much they would pay. They have people dedicated to finding anything they can to deny paying for treatment.

The only remedy is a single-payer, not-for-profit, government-run system. This is a proven fact.

LEIF DAMSTOFT

Warren