By Rick Olanoff, March 26, 2019

Thank you, Rhett Cox, for sharing your concerns about the New York Health Act (“Single-payer health insurance would take away patient choice,” March 20, 2019). First, New Y Health will give you more choice in practitioners, both generalists and specialists. Diabetics, whose bodies change over time, need internists, endocrinologists and ophthalmologists to prevent this autoimmune disease from ravaging their bodies and depleting their finances. Twenty years ago, insulin and supplies cost about $1,000 per year. Today, it’s $8,000.

High costs cause almost 40 percent of New Yorkers with chronic diseases to use less medication than prescribed and delay seeing doctors.

Single-payer NY Health Act will solve that. How? It’s a payment system, not a delivery system. Just like with Medicare, doctors and hospitals will send their bills to the New York Health Trust, not to dozens of for-profit insurers. You (or your employer-based healthcare plan) will pay into the trust through a graduated tax.

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