Understanding health care costs

To the Editor;
(In his Oct. 2 letter) Jeffrey Weatherbee has little understanding of American health care or its costs.

Does he really think healthcare is free today because employers pay for most of it? So it doesn’t “come out of paychecks”? Does he understand the average employer share of premiums is over $20,000? Don’t you think that “comes out of your paycheck”? It is an expense they must take into account when the determine pay! And for government employees (police, fire, public works, jails, town, state, federal officials, teachers, etc.). Taxpayers are paying that $20,000-plus each year! Your product and service companies add that to their fees so you pay for their care as well. Or the taxes (corporate welfare) he pays to cover the Medicaid for Walmart employees?

Not to mention what is 2.9 percent withheld (from you and your employer) for Medicare. Then retire and pay $135.50 per month per person for Part B and add Companion, Advantage, drug coverage, dental, vision, hearing, deductibles and copays. We pay over $25,000-plus every year now, one way or another, have for decades, increasing exponentially.

We don’t expect it to be free, but we expect to get care. The cost will come out of taxes and will eliminate insurance company overhead and executive seven- and eight-figure compensations.

He talks of the flood crossing the Canadian border. That is a flood of Americans seeking cheaper drugs in Canada. There is no flood from Canada. It is Americans who wait and wait and wait for appointments and procedures.

As to raiding Social Security, that was the Republicans handing $2 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest 0.5 percent. And those “IRS” calls are criminals committing phone scams! The IRS does not use phone calls!

I think Mr. Weatherbee needs a lesson in basic economics so he can understand what he is paying now for healthcare that is among the worst in the industrialized world.

John Albertini
Charleston