Time to insist on Medicare for all

This is an open letter to all Montanans enrolled in Affordable Care Act health care exchanges.

The Associated Press just announced that Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Montana is requesting an average 23.1 percent premium rate hike for individual plans purchased through insurance exchanges of the Affordable Care Act. This is the third double-digit hike in premiums by BC/BS since 2009.

The company said the uncertainty regarding the failure to reach congressional consensus on a health care bill has caused the Montana private insurer, BC/BS (and surely other national private insurers), to price for that uncertainty.

All Montanans should recognize that this decision is how for-profit health insurance companies and the other profit-driven health stakeholders operate. The free market motive to preserve profits for stockholders is expected to be primary in a capitalistic society, but that is why profit-making in a system that treats health care as a commodity can never be justifiably applied to health care.

It is long past time for Americans to demand that health care be declared a human right and insist on single-payer, H.R. 676, Medicare for all. We must have unimpeded, guaranteed access to affordable health care, which is Medicare for all.

Richard A. Damon,

Bozeman