Insurance 'providers'

The letter "Pay to live" (Forum, May 8) talked how "health care providers" are benefiting from the Affordable Care Act. Not to put too fine a point on it, but "providers" — doctors, nurses and others who actually provide health care — are not the ones benefiting.

The fiscal "good fortune" from the ACA is going to health insurance companies. In no sense can they be called "providers." They don't provide any care at all. They delay care. They deny care. They penuriously distribute our premium money to real providers of care. But they do not provide care.

As health insurance companies pass our money on to the providers, they take out a huge cut. The ACA limits their cut to 18 percent. (In the past, it was as much as 35 percent.) Just to transfer money?

The problem with the ACA is that it did not finish health care reform. We must press for reduction of health care costs.

Cost reduction can't be completed by taking more from the real providers of health care, or there will not be enough real providers for good health. Take your appendicitis to your insurance company and see what happens.

Lauren O. Florence, M.D.

Salt Lake City