Good government

Some of us seem to be afraid of "government involvement in health care." I, however, am not afraid, because I am from Rush County.

Here we have an older than average population, making Medicare a leading provider of health insurance (Just in case: Medicare is a government program). A vast majority of residents in the local nursing home are using Medicare to pay the bills.  The same is true in long-term care at the local hospital. We are also fortunate that Medicare considers our hospital a critical access hospital, making the facility eligible for larger Medicare reimbursements.

Both the hospital and nursing homes are nonprofit public institutions. The improvements recently started at the hospital are financed by bonds approved by the voters.

The doctors practice in a building owned by Rush County. The EMS is a publicly financed department of the county government. The local pharmacy was opened with the assistance of the economic development committee, a government entity.

If our health care in Rush County relied on the "free market" without government involvement, we would have no health care. No hospital, no nursing home, no doctor, no ambulance, not even a drug store.

Here is an example; if a chemical drum were to explode and I was injured at work, would HCA, Aetna, Blue Cross or GlaxoSmithKline come to help me? No. There is no profit in maintaining an ambulance with trained EMS personnel in Rush County, Kansas. It is only a tax-supported government that would care enough to bear the expense of providing emergency services here.

Government involvement in health care? I like it, because I'm from Rush County.

A.B. Campbell

Bison