In developed, industrial countries where health care is state sponsored, the legislature regulates the industry. The cost of pharmaceuticals and health-care reimbursement is regulated by the equivalent of Congress. In our country, this is not the case.

The ACA is an effort to address the fact that more than 40 million Americans have no health insurance in the wealthiest country on Earth. More important, and likely the real reason for the ACA, is that our country is drowning in the cost of health care. It accounts for the largest part of our annual debt. In 2011, we spent more than 23 percent on health care – and that was just Medicare and Medicaid. True reform of our health-care system would address all the factors that fundamentally affect our personal health-care costs.. The ACA does not do this. Obama and Congress did not force big pharma or big insurance to accept congressional regulation, which would have created uniform, reasonable reimbursement for products in the health-care marketplace. The irony is that Congress already does this for Medicare and Medicaid.

I have no personal agenda other than wanting my government to use its power and authority to improve the quality of my life and my children’s life. The ACA is flawed because it does not lower health-care costs fundamentally. It does not realistically increase access, and it does nothing to reform our system of overcharging for everything from drugs to Band-Aids.

Ask yourself one thing, folks, can you really afford your health care? Is there a fundamental change in what you will get going forward? The success of the act is not the issue, the way we approach our health care is. Without real reform in the pharmaceutical, hospital corporation and insurance industry, we will continue to realize that the No. 1 reason for bankruptcy in America is related to health-care costs. Think about it. Can you afford a major medical event? I can’t.

Jim Pitts

Durango