Dear Editor:
The Surviving Healthcare Reform forum at Lincoln University provided both support for the ACA in the ways that it improved health care coverage for citizens and admitted its failings. Very informative speakers and panelists spread light on the complexities of providing affordable health care for all Americans.
This forum exposed the elephant (and donkey) in the room. Healthcare in American is very much determined by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. It will be impossible to fix health care costs unless something is done to address the effect of big money in politics. Some letters to the editor have tried to define a difference in providing health care and providing health insurance. Traditionally, and as our United States' health care is designed, insurance is the mechanism funding and thereby defining what health care may be provided. Ways of taking insurance companies out of the equation were addressed at the forum, but it would be very difficult to remove this entrenched element from the system.
CLEAN Missouri (www.cleanmissouri.org) is endeavoring to take "big money" out of politics in the state of Missouri. This citizen initiated state constitutional amendment petition would give citizens the "louder voice in public decision-making " and mute the loud controlling voices of millionaire donors and lobbyists, including those that currently control healthcare policy.