The Single-Payer Solution
To the Editor:
Were you perplexed as I was over the May “Health in Humboldt 2026” issue of Senior News? As in this issue, recent local forums have addressed the current defective state of healthcare availability in Humboldt County. While pertinent questions have been asked along with recognition that our current system is severely flawed and creating a need “to improve access and equity in health care,” no conclusive solutions were recommended.
Unfortunately, the primary driver of today’s administratively complex and hugely expensive healthcare system was not explicitly addressed — namely, a system that treats health as a profit-driven market commodity (“surplus” in the nonprofit sector) that hides behind expensive, wasteful administrative complexity. This must change in order to build the foundation that can transform our healthcare delivery system into one that is patient-centered, measuring quality based on patient outcomes and not dollars saved, and that responds to the unique needs of communities such as Humboldt.
Such a transformation begins with a form of a single-payer system, also known as universal Medicare for All, which has been successfully practiced by many industrialized democracies. A single-payer system would provide healthcare access for every U.S. resident regardless of income, age, race, gender, marital or occupational status, from birth to death. The cost would be substantially less than people pay now, eliminating premiums, co-pays and deductibles. Doctor and hospital bills would be a thing of the past. The resulting population health status improvement would contribute to an enormous saving to the nation as a whole, eliminating medical debt, homelessness and untimely deaths.
As Senior News and other forums have done, a single-payer system will continue to seek input to address unique aspects of various communities, but because the system will be so much simpler and responsive to patient needs, answers will be more easily attainable.
Corinne Frugoni, M.D., Arcata
