To the editor:
Do I understand this correctly?
Stephen Laverty was ousted from his position as Beverly Hospital CEO, his “tenure plagued by acrimony and controversy”. Yet, four years after leaving the hospital, he is still being rewarded with paychecks totaling more than $1.56 million?
Perhaps, in our profit-driven “health-care system,” this shouldn’t come as a surprise, with similar scenarios being played out daily throughout America.
While the top hospital executives are feathering their nests, hospital bills continue to be the primary cause (62 percent) of personal bankruptcies in America.
Of these, 78 percent had health insurance (2009 Harvard study). We get sick, they get rich.
Rather than a healthcare system, what we have is a medical extortion system, with financial ruin lurking around the corner.
To anyone living in one of the advanced industrialized nations with a single-payer system, the high costs and millionaire salaries are unfathomable and put the lie to the “life” part of the American guarantee of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Is it any wonder that, concerning healthcare, among other industrialized nations Americans are regarded as the world’s biggest rubes?
HARRY BARTNICK
Beverly
