In recent decades our US healthcare system has become a money-making operation for corporate profiteers in the guise of insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

I have been a practicing physician for years in Syracuse, and now in Tompkins County. I have spent an unhealthy amount of time dealing with insurance company obstruction. At a whim, insurance will deny coverage of previously-covered medications, or deny preventive visits. Hours of office time that could be better spent on patients goes to phone calls and paperwork. Patients who do not qualify for assistance often go without medications they need, or delay getting exams and diagnostic tests that could detect diseases like cancer in the earliest stages.

How can we, as a society, continue to dictate who gets to live a healthy, disease free life and who doesn’t?

Read the full letter here.