Wow! Great column and full of common sense. Well done, Mr Rioux!!

Here's where you're wrong: "...like any other business." Health insurance is not like any other business, because one's health and life are not commodites on which one can place a dollar value. Some people, through no fault of their own, will require a great deal more from the health insurance system than others. In this sense, health insurance is more like public education, which is required and government subsidized, than it is like car insurance, which is used only by those who choose to own a car. It is more than "fashionable" to blame insurance companies for health care's high cost and uneven ability -- the problem is rooted in the very model of health insurance as just another business.

I meant "uneven availability." Poor early-morning proofreading.

Health insurance companies profits that have increased 350% in the last 10 years. We are getting ripped off and that is a large part of why the costs of health care have risen 10% every year for the last 10.

If you would like to help pressure Congress to pass single payer health care please join our voting bloc at:

www.votingbloc.org

Finally, someone who "gets it!" Very well said Bruce! Its a mystery why hank doesn't recognize insurance companies as a business. Are they suppose to give it away? Pontesisto, I don't know where you are getting your numbers, but if you believe what you wrote, then you are getting ripped off....via your informational source.

I will be looking to see if the BDN runs anything from a healthcare provider that balances this article, like the Single Payer Option. President Obama when running for office supported a single payer option. Sen Snowe is on record as having believed a single payer option was what we needed. There are hundreds of respected organizations that support a single payer option. Corruption and greed is in control now, and if you don`t understand how the corruption of our elected officials is being controlled by the greed of the insurance companies then it will be along time until we get the healthcare that we need. We are getting to be the biggest joke in the world for our flip flopin behavior. Sometimes sitting on the side lines gives you a better perspective.

For those that think that Social Security, Medicare, and Mediaid cannot be fixed are very wrong in my opinion. How much of our tax dollors is enough. I say we pay enough to get all the services we should have. All we need to do is get the graft, greed, and corruption out of the polictical process. And yes our current taxes can still pay for the military and also add a Single Payer Healthcare if used wisely, which is not a large commodity in any of our State and National leadership. Why because we simply have not flat out demanded it. Get on board and demonstrate, pay attention, and Vote to get the things we want.

I have never been inside Millinocket Regional Hospital, I`m sure it is a fine little hopital. I`m sure Bruce Rioux is a fine RN. I just have to wonder why the BDN felt it had to go Millinocket to get this comment, when EMMC and St Joe`s are so close. Dang what would it really take to run a survey in all the hospitals in the state to help our citizens understand. Would I trust the BND to do this, not with my money.

Oh, BTW wasn`t that an insurance company trying to get another increase in rates Monday or Tuesday.

OMG yes Tort reform is another dragon that needs slaying. This can be done after we put in a single payer.

ElectraGlide...BDN has been in bed with Obama and Pelosi's health care plan since the beginning! I was actually surprised they published anything to the contrary! BTW..we know Obama wants single payer (socialized medicine) because he said it before being elected. However, he denies wanting it at present because he knows it would be politically unpopular. And, for him, it is all about the poll numbers and the protesters. I only hope he listens to what the majority is saying...and they are saying NO to any government run health care program!!!!

Mr. Rioux is factually in error, crediting private, for-profit entities with research leading to medical advances -- that is largely funded by taxpayers in the non-profit sector. What little private companies invest is dwarfed by their marketing expenditures. Interestingly, comparing us to Europe or Scandinavia is a tactic often used across the pond to answer complaints about (admittedly) imperfect universal systems to illustrate how much worse they COULD be. Mr. Rioux does not specify his position in the debate of health care as a product or a human right, but he either condones the denial of life-sustaining care an acceptable business move in pursuit of profits or considers the ER an adequate fulfillment of our responsibility uphold care as a human right. The first is barbaric, and the second inadequate and inefficient. While I share the gentleman's concern about low reimbursement rates by the public sector currently being subsidized by private payers, lower cost, more humane solutions abound in the wealthy world. I further agree that tort reform is needed, but am aware the savings would be relatively small. It's the profits, stupid!

Any bill that is produced that does not include real tort reforms should not be taken seriously. At this very moment, on the cover of the Tampa Bay Yellow Pages, there are three different advertisements for three different malpractice firms. JUST ON THE COVER! On my way to work, I see SIX roadside billboards, advertising the services of malpractice attorneys. This along a four mile stretch of northbound 275. If you don't think physicians think about these things, you are wrong. I know I do. I know my colleagues do. What a shame. You can bet I am going to order all of the tests in the book to CMA. I am not about to give away what took me over a decade and a half to earn. Not a chance. The arguments against real tort reforms are old, tired, and stopped holding water a long time ago.

Christopher Russo, M.D.

University of Michigan Medical School '94