This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Utah state Sen. Stuart Adams' assertion that "Washington has made a mess of our health care system" ("Let Utah escape the Affordable Care Act," Opinion, Jan. 26) is mistaken. The health care system in the U.S. has long been a mess because it is dominated by insurance and health-care and pharmaceutical corporations whose first priority is maximizing private profit, not public health.
That's why the U.S. has the lowest rate of access to health care and by far the highest per capita health care costs and ranks at the bottom in health outcomes among the economically advanced nations.
Obamacare is flawed and complicated by the decision to protect the private profit health insurance corporations, which operate with a 15 to 20 percent administrative overhead.
The government-administered Medicare system, which already serves about one-sixth of the U.S. population, operates with about 3 percent administrative overhead cost. Expanding Medicare to cover the entire population would be the most efficient, least expensive way to qualitatively improve the U.S. health-care system.
Dayne Goodwin
Salt Lake City