Editor, Gazette-Journal:

The Centers for Disease Control states that that, after heart failure and cancer, medical mistakes represent the third leading cause of death in America. A sobering statistic for a society as technologically advanced as ours. That’s over 200,000 people a year.

The World Health Organization ranks our health care system as #1 in costliness; but only 31st in quality; 40th in life expectancy and 169th in infant mortality. We pay more for drugs, made here in the United States, than they do in most other countries because of protectionist policies to protect drug company profits.

With the current political cry of “Make America Great Again” ringing in our ears, health care is a good place to start. Hillary made a valiant try in the Clinton era, and President Obama went way further and enacted the Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately, as happens with so many good plans, implementation suffered inattention, resulting in a system with a lot of faults.
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