2023-12-20

A resident of Madison, Wisconsin, sent the letter reproduced below to the Editor of the Capitol Times, Wisconsin. He compares what he calls America's "health insurance industry" with the US Postal Service, schools, and the metric system, saying that each of these actually achieve what they are intended to do. He also gives us a new acronym to describe American measures: the Accidental Collection of Heterogenous Units, ACHU.

​

Dear Editor: A recent contributor to the Voice of the People lamented the rising cost of health care in America. And while he’s absolutely right about that, I quibble with his use of the phrase “health care system.” It’s misleading.

In the first place, it’s not a system. A system is something that’s designed to achieve a particular end, in a coordinated way, usually as efficiently as possible (think computers or automobiles). In the second place, it’s not about care, it’s about capitalism.

What we have in lieu of a true health care system (you know, the kind that every other industrialized democracy on the planet has and loves) is a haphazard scattering of profit centers concentrated in areas where the money is, with vast swaths of the nation underserved or unserved.

By contrast, the U.S. Postal Service and the public schools are true systems that serve every square centimetre of the country. (And yes, the metric system too is a true system, well and intentionally designed, not like ACHU, the Accidental Collection of Heterogeneous Units that the U.S. alone in the world still clings to.) (Emphasis added)

So I recommend using the phrase “health insurance industry” because it’s more accurate.

Richard S. Russell

Madison