Health savings accounts best reform remedy

My father routinely grabbed his medical bag and walked the neighborhood serving the locals in the Watertown area with medical care. Following Harry Truman's 1945 message to Congress requesting legislation establishing a national health insurance plan and two decades of debate including warnings of the dangers of "socialized medicine," Medicare and Medicaid are signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson as part of his "Great Society".

Review of the history of health care in this country since the U.S. government's entry details the unconstrained, accretive and shameful increases in cost and liability. And yet, we the people have allowed our improvident public servants to further politicize private health care, further exacerbating cost to every component within the system.

Has an attempt to overhaul the health care system included an analyzed study of the current delivery on a state-by-state, city-by-city basis? How will the 170 million individuals with health insurance be impacted by a potential public overhaul and subsequent offering? Why are 46 million Americans without health insurance? Are they eligible for private insurance? Estimates have concluded 11 million of the 46 million uninsured are eligible for Medicare.

Increases in health care spending are decreasing, reaching single-digit percentages over the past three years. The smallest increase of 6 percent occurred during 2008. For profit, nonprofit and charitable entities manage and control revenues and expenses by design and per the tax code.

The proposed public solution accomplishes neither while adding uncontrollable inefficiencies and waste to the newly rationed care. This option is formed without natural propensities and incentives aimed at quality and innovation. The Congressional Budget Office projects the proposed public option will reduce the uninsured total by only a third at an expense of $107,000 per uninsured ($1.6 trillion/15 million uninsured), utilizing a 2007 government estimate of 46 million Americans uninsured under the age of 65.

My sibling's medical training and Hippocratic Oath prepared him for the methods prescribed by the current health care bureaucracy. Decisions made by physicians and participating insurance companies are shaped to hedge against liability versus serving the need and care of the patient. Malpractice statutes contort patient care, extending well beyond physician advertencies and controlled processes.

Permanent and portable individually owned health savings accounts (HSAs) will provide and empower the individual with choice. HSA purchase vouchers will extend affordability and equal access to care for the poor.

This solution is the only remedy enabling the health care industry to advance the practice, treatment and discovery of new innovations in the fight against and management of human disease.

Peter Marilley

Oviedo, Fla.