In a March 20 column in the BDN, Frank J. Heller and Kenneth Lindell state: “Just like every other form of insurance, some people pose such a high risk of exhausting the benefits that they are denied conventional insurance. Mainers prefer to have car insurance rates kept low by allowing insurers to screen out bad drivers.”

This exactly illustrates what’s wrong with the Republican market-based approach to health insurance. Republicans think of sick people like bad drivers. It’s their fault if they have a chronic illness or need emergency surgery. Why should the rest of us pay for it?

Imagine applying the same concept to education. Some students cost the school system more than others. Schools could save a lot of money by not building wheelchair ramps or not hiring teaching assistants for learning disabled children.

We don’t exclude those children from school, of course. Nor does the school district bill their families. Recognizing that an educated citizenry is in the interest of all, we fund public schools collectively. The result is that just about every kid in this country goes to school, and just about every adult can read and write.

A healthy population is no less in the national interest. Yet 50 million Americans are uninsured. Single-payer health insurance would save billions annually in paperwork alone, and billions more in preventive care that could forestall more costly and complicated procedures.

Private, profit-motivated insurance companies run by millionaire executives can’t solve our health care problem. They are the problem.

Henry Garfield

Blue Hill