The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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November 22, 2009

Your View — Government-run care doesn’t work well

Gary Lindsay, North Mankato

You have heard the saying, “Sometimes you get what you ask for.” So is the case with the health bill that recently passed the House. I own what is known as a “clearinghouse” in the health industry.

We process insurance claims for dentists and have been in business now for 15 years. We are the ones who get the dentists and doctors paid. We send claims to all carriers nationwide.

About 20 percent of our business is Medicare and Medicaid, the rest is for non-profit and for-profit insurance carriers. In spite of this, 95 percent of our problems are with Medicare and Medicaid. This should tell you something about government-run health care. It simply does not work well.

The bill that recently narrowly passed in the House is a bad bill for several reasons. I will zero in on one for now: Public option. This is not good. If this bill passes the Senate, the public option will sell for less than what the commercial carriers can sell for. Small business owners and individuals will purchase it because it is cheap. Over a period of 10 to 20 years, most commercial carriers will go out of business. This will leave us with a health system like Canada and England.

I have close relatives in both countries. People in those countries think we are nuts for considering government-run insurance. If you need a specialist or want elective surgery, you will wait. Sometimes as long as two years. Because of this, my relatives in England are going to buy private insurance which is very expensive. There are such long waiting lines in Canada that the doctors there refer their seriously ill patients to American clinics such as Mayo in Rochester. In this situation, the Canadian government pays the fee. Sounds good, right? OK, then where will our doctors refer us when the wait here in the United States is too long, Mexico?

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