Letter: Health care is a business

In response to Jack McMillin’s article “Answers needed for Champaign health care”:

It saddens me to hear about the staggering number of residents in the area that have difficulty acquiring health care when needed, but Mr. McMillin address the problem impractically.

For example, if a manager of a car rental company were approached by a potential customer without car insurance, we cannot reasonably expect him to lend out an automobile to that customer. Without car insurance, if a car accident were to occur involving the user, the net economic loss could quite possibly fall directly into the manager’s lap. This situation is not identical to the health care counterpart, as comparing the lives of residents in the Champaign area to cars is ludicrous, but doctors have salaries. Hospitals have upkeep. Something has to pay the bills. Perhaps taxpayers will be burdened later on, as Jack said, but at that moment in time when compensation for service at a clinic is needed, possible increased taxes at a later date are not sufficient.

Jack is correct in stating that something does need to be done. Yet rather than placing the blame on doctors and medical practices who apparently decide that “the lives of some are not worth caring for,” the problem needs to be approached from other angles. What these angles are is quite the dilemma, and I pray that the problem will somehow be alleviated in the future.

Yes, I am a student who has health insurance and an aspiring physician. Yet however you look at it, every hospital and health care provider needs a source of steady income. And so do their employees: doctors.

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Dave Siebert

Sophomore in LAS