Dear editor,

It’s amazing that single-payer insurance (national health insurance) is barely covered in the media right now. With Obama’s focus on both healthcare and the economic crisis, you’d think that information about the most cost efficient way to design our healthcare system would be front and center.

Add the fact that 60 percent of all Americans and 59 percent of physicians favor national health insurance, and you might have to wonder whether private insurance and drug companies are now running the media. We already know they run Congress. They’ve showered Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) with $413,000 since 2005 in the name of “campaign contributions.” And now, it’s no surprise that Baucus is pushing healthcare reform that mandates Americans buy private insurance.

The truth is that we can save $350 billion annually by removing private insurance companies and going to a single-payer system. And, we wouldn’t be starting from scratch since our Medicare system is already national health insurance for those age 65 plus.

Prestigious medical groups, religious organizations, labor unions, economists and others say that national health insurance is the way to go. President Obama is now asking for input on his new website www.healthreform.gov before additional healthcare legislation is written. Submit your ideas and demand national health insurance – as part of the real change you voted for last November.

America should make healthcare (preventive care and treatment) a human right as it is in all other industrialized countries. We’ve made public education a right in this country; healthcare should be too.

Linda A. Haynes

Huntsville, Ala.