The United States has the best health care in the world, but because of its inefficiencies, also the most expensive. The fundamental problem with the 2,074-page Senate health care bill (as with its 2,014-page House counterpart) is that it wildly compounds the complexity by adding hundreds of new provisions, regulations, mandates, committees and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions. ...more

November 29, 2009

For consumers, the health care bills taking final shape in Congress don't rate close to a perfect 10. ...more

November 23, 2009

Abortion coverage Health care reform means covering women, and women need reproductive coverage. ...more

November 20, 2009

I do want health care reform, but not like what has been voted on in Congress. This hurts most of us. Taxes will go up, no doubt. Medicare suffers. That hurts disabled persons and the elderly — those we are entrusted to care for. ...more

November 17, 2009

Thank you Mr. Doty, I've not read a funnier letter to the editor in quite some time. Let's first deal with your idea of liberalism equals socialism. True both ideologies believe everyone should have a say in how both the economy and government works. Its true democracy! Now communism is opposite to that idea. It wants control in fewer hands; just like conservatism, which is the idea Republicans want. ...more

November 17, 2009

My wife is retired, and I will be 66 years old. I favor health care reform with a public option to put pressure on the insurance industry. ...more

November 12, 2009

People are listening to the insurance companies that would love to keep gouging us and dumping us when we actually get sick. All we want is affordable health care (not free) with real coverage when we need it. How about having an option to keep the corporations honest and fair? Everybody knows someone who would like to be able to purchase health insurance but can't afford it. Come on America, we can do way better. The opponents are the insurance companies and the politicians taking huge money from them! ...more

November 12, 2009

A main feature of the health bill the House passed Saturday is a requirement that everyone have medical insurance by 2013 or else pay a penalty. ...more

November 10, 2009

Red-light cameras Having driven in the Middle East (Doha, Qatar) with red-light and speed cameras, I witnessed more accidents than they prevented, and there were more violent crashes. Drivers slamming their brakes to minimize tickets were very common and did not subside with education. Drivers just worked around them. ...more

November 10, 2009

As I was talking recently with the founder of a large American corporation, the conversation turned (inevitably) to health care reform. His employees in their 20s, on average, cost the company about $1,500 a year in health bills. Those in their 50s cost at least 10 times more. The effect of proposed health care reform - which limits the ability of insurers to charge higher premiums for older adults - would be, he said, a large shift of America's health care burden to the younger generation. ...more

November 4, 2009