It’s profit care, not health care

I thank Bill Schubart for his commentary “Focusing on three points could really help fix Vermont (Digger, March 6). 

The part on health care is especially true. As Mr. Schubart wrote: “In health care, any future vision must be viewed through the eyes of those who need it, use it, and provide it, not solely through the eyes of those who administer it or profit from it.”

This is common sense. It should never need to be stated, whether by Mr. Schubart or anyone else. Yet, our health system is less about health care and more about profit care for “those who administer it or profit from it.” It is a massive heist of our money in co-pays, deductibles, fees, premiums and taxes by our medical-industrial complex and our political system that feeds so well off of this complex.

I do not know if Mr. Schubart’s solutions change any of this. Shrugging it off to wait for the federal government to act will not do any good, especially since this government under a Democratic Congress and president is subtly trying to sell off our Medicare to Wall Street. “Value-based care” or “global budgets” won’t help either. Neither will schemes like the Affordable Care Act. 

What will work is that common-sense approach of health care being for those “who need it, use it, and provide it,” where we are not considered as disposable resources for profit, but human beings.

Walter Carpenter

Montpelier