Dear FRONTLINE,

The last visit I made to my doctors I was the only person sitting and waiting to see the doctor and whilst I sat there, a never ending line of prescription drugs reps walked in and dropped off samples for promotion to my doctors patients, there is only one word for this kind of activity and that is OBSCENE.It is time now for the USA to revamp the system and throw out all the people and corporations in this industry that are bitten by the greed weed and also make every single citizen contribute to a better health care system, every other country on the planet earth has better than us and it should be unacceptable to us here in the USA to have anything less

st charles, missouri

Dear FRONTLINE,

Until we all share the costs of health care as a nation, we are all at risk. Many of us make just enough to not qualify for help paying for health insurance. In Massachusetts having health insurance has been mandated. I got on board and did my share to join the system. It went from about $600 to $850 per month for just one individual, certainly not affordable. I also do not see any cost containment, or needed reductions. It is no longer possible to afford this "slanted system". Every month I paid into insurance, the less I had to pay those who actually provided me good medical care, such as my dentist. I was being forced to choose between having insurance and putting my money into real health care such as dental fees. As individuals we are one illness away from financial ruin.

We as individuals and families are bring told that we are too costly to insure, while most of us pay taxes to support the health insurance coverage of municipal workers, teachers, police officers, our legislators, state and federal employees, service men and women.

We as individual citizens are not looking for free health care. We do however need and demand a system that is fair to all. As long as we send our dollars monthly to the insurance companies we will always be at their mercy for rescision, for for monthly increases. My dollars are my vote and I for one am not willing to pay until the system is reformed to fairly share the burden of health care.

Vineyard Haven, MA

Dear FRONTLINE,

[This] documentary portrays so much of what is wrong with the health care financing industry in this country. My daughter's insurance company denied her claim for coverage of a complication of delivery, and after two appeals, a letter from the Obstetritician, and enlisting the aid of a billing advocate, the company rescinded its decision and paid, twelve months after my grandson was born. How many people would have just given up and paid? Or gone bankrupt? I am one of the 59% of American physicians who suppports Single Payer healthcare reform.

Carol Paris
Leonardtown, MD

Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you, Frontline, for your inspiring programs first on health care around the world and now on health care in the U.S. We should draw three conclusions:

1. As Dr. Delbanco stated so eloquently, the first step is to provide health care to everyone. Only then, and at the same time, should we tackle the problems of cost and quality. If we wait to expand health coverage until we have succeeded in curtailing costs, we will wait forever and acquiese in the suffering of those without access to the care they need.

2. If we truly want everyone to have health insurance, we need to provide it to them, i.e. to make signing up as autonmatic and easy as possible. Mandates to purchase health insurance are inefficient, expensive, incomplete, and unnecessary.

3. To make universal health care as efficient and inexpensive as possible, we need to institute a single payer system, i.e. to eliminate the hassle imposed on patients and providers by the private insurance system and eliminate the waste of health care dollars in marketing, claims processing, administrative salaries, and profits. The models are the single payer bills introduced by Representative Conyers in the House and by Senator Sanders in the Senate.

Thank you again, Frontline, for teaching us these lessons.

Paul Sorum
Schenectady, New York

Dear FRONTLINE,

The insurance consultant's conclusion is that patients, doctors and hospitals should all take less. Naturally, he makes no mention of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies' exhorbitant profits. If we took those profits, we could cover the cost of health care for everyone in this country. In our country, we have the insurance companies running the system for their own profits and people be damned! Health care should not be a profit-making enterprise, it should be a right for everyone in the US. I think the only answer is a single-payer system and we can design one that fits our country. It will be more cost effective and will bring decisions about medical care back to the physicians and the patients, and not leave it to the insurance companies to say who can get care and who can not based on their profit-making needs.

Euthemia Matsoukas
Delmar, New York

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am a physician in private practice (pathology) in Wisconsin. Your program made some very good points, with the usual big insurance versus physicians versus government issues pretty well explored. From a physician's standpoint, it is a constant source of annoyance to be held up for ridicule for what is seen by the public to be excessive income. While many physicians do earn solid six figure incomes, look at the level of skill and training they require (8-10 years or more of expensive medical school and further training AFTER college before making any serious money)! By the way, even the best paid and most highly skilled physicians' compensation pales in comparison to the $100 million plus BONUS paid to the CEO of United Healthcare Insurance in 2005! Why do people balk at the thought of a neurosurgeon, for instance, making a half million dollars or more a year for arguably the most technically skilled job in the world, working inside human brains where the slightest slip or mistake could easily be fatal, and not complaining at all about their favorite NFL quarterback getting 50 times that or more per year to play a game, or a corporate CEO who can make a neurosurgeons LIFETIME income in a single "bonus"! Where are our priorities???????

James Kranz
Kenosha, WI

Dear FRONTLINE,

Sick Around America" is a good assessment of the sorry state of health care in our country, but there was one glaring omission--the possibility of a single-payer system. A discussion of an expanded "Medicare for All" system should have been a part of this program and should be on the table in Obama's health care reform plans. As Harvard professor Uwe Reinhardt said in the program, cutting the administrative costs of the health insurance companies would easily pay for all the uninsured. In other words, by eliminating the health insurance industry as middleman, we solve the health care crisis. Medicare for all makes both good business and moral sense. Are our legislators brave enough to take this step?

Carolyn Ferguson
Pittsburgh, PA

Dear FRONTLINE,

Time to move beyond story after story of the dysfunctional, for profit U.S. health insurance system; the public is ready to learn how "other developed countries" manage to provide health care for everyone. Frontline had nary a word about single payer system. Oddly, there was no mention of the highly popular U.S. single payer insurance called Medicare. Have you ever met a 65 year old person willing to forego Medicare because it is a government program? I am disappointed that Frontline did not provide basic information about how a European country or Canada manages national healthcare, including the "premiums" that the citizenry pays.

Phyllis Stutzman
Goshen, IN

FRONTLINE's editors respond:

Please look at last year's report Sick Around the World for more information about health care in other countries.

Dear FRONTLINE,

I watched your program "Sick Around America" anticipating a discussion of the single-payer option. Certainly given the reputation for honesty and accuracy of Frontline it would be discussed in this piece. No such luck! How disappointing. Is it possible that Frontline is also cowed by the health insurance industry, as the Obama administration seems to be? Why did you not mention that representatives of single-payer option were only invited to Pres. Obama's recent health care meeting after a public outcry? Until the profit motive is removed from our health care system I don't think we will get true progress. How sad! And this was such an opportunity to take an honest look.

Phyllis M Andrews
New York, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

I was amazed that there was not a single reference to the impact that the various ways states handle malpractice law has on total cost of healthcare. Not an hour passes here in Florida without several ads on television inviting viewers to contact a lawyer about any suspicion that they may have been mistreated by a medical provider. How much of our cost structure is being inflated by the self-defensive responses of care givers to the potential of being second-guessed by lawyers whose only interest--and a big one at that in most states--is finding the one missing diagnostic test that might have mitigated a medical misfortune. Wouldn't it have been instructive and informative to PBS viewers to learn how malpractice law is applied in other countries? And whether the states that have enacted tort reform laws are experiencing lower costs? We've lost too many dedicated physicians over the issue of unbearable malpractice insurance costs and intolerable stress from the fear of ever taking steps to serve their patients without first consulting with an army of experts.

william
estero, florida

Dear FRONTLINE,

I support a system of health care that covers everyone with one important caveat. I will not under any circumstance participate in a program that requires by law that I purchase a product (insurance) from a private for profit entity. The glaring omission I always see in any health care discussion is the question of is it morally right to profit from another's illness or injury. The failings of the human body are universal and should not be a business opportunity. Let's cut the profiteers out of the cost of health care.

Wade Prater
Austin, TX

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am glad to see I am not the only one to find myself with out health care coverage at the age of 50. I am under employed! I have 3 part time jobs to pay the bills while I try to replace the job I was laid off from due to the financial mess! I have been a small business office manager/accountant for over 20 years and for the 1st time in my life I am unable to pay $600 monthly COBRA premiums and I do not qualify for any other affordable insurance. The state of FL has a program if you have been uninsured for 6 months or more. So I pray....for health

Orlando, FL

Dear FRONTLINE,

I was watching the show on the health care crisis in the USA and i am amazed still that people can go bankrupt for getting sick. I am hopeful that Americans will one day have a health care system similar to Canada and other nations in the developed world. In Canada, we ALL receive health care which is paid for by each province or the federal government. You can then have additional health care for prescriptions and extra things like accupuncture, massage etc either through work - again often not paid for by the individual - or plans like Blue Cross for those who do not have the extra health care through work. Everyone though does have some care and nobody would ever go bankrupt from being hospitalized. I was shocked that one woman on the show received over $160,000.00 in medical bills for 6 days in a hospital! As i said, i really hope that solving this crisis is key to the USA recovering from the economic crisis. Just think of all the money everyone would have to spend on other things if they didn't have to pay such high insurance premiums.

James Stoneburrowes
Toronto, ON, Canada

Dear FRONTLINE,

This program is heavy on interviews of insurance executives. Where are the voices for Single Payer, Medicare For All?

You stated that all other countries require all residents to buy health insurance. This is not true. Canada and UK cover everyone through taxes. Taiwan has a system like our Medicare.

If the US mandates insurance, the for-profit insurance industry will rake in tax payer money to support share holders, complex administration costs and excessive executive salaries and bonuses. This show is disappointing.

Karen Green Stone
Bloomington, IN

Dear FRONTLINE,

Massachusetts -- Election Day 2008A ballot initiative put forward in 10 legislative districts read:

"Should the representative from this district be instructed to support legislation creating a cost-effective single payer health insurance system that is available to all residents, and oppose laws penalizing those who fail to obtain health insurance?”

73% of the 181,895 people voted YES.

Why oh why, from the very state where the health insurance "mandate" -- a law criminalizing the uninsured -- is held up as a model for the nation, in spite of its obvious failure?

Single payer national health insurance, H.R. 676, will SAVE hundreds of billions of dollars and COVER EVERYONE.

Health is a human right!

Andrew D. Coates, MD
Delmar, NY