Short-term losses OK in health care fix

Deficits are not good themselves. But they are necessary in government and business to achieve "profits." When a business buys a big machine, this decision leads to losses/deficits in the first few years: money out to buy the machine, money out to develop the product demand, money out to train the people to operate the machine, all with no money coming in.

These losses/deficits are necessary to create the possibility of future profits from the machine. Despite near term deficits, decisions to buy machines provide the path to business profitability and growth. The same applies to the delivery of health care. The USA spends much, much more of its per capita annual income on the delivery of health care than other advanced countries.

Fixing this problem requires investments in the reform of our health care system in the coming years that will create near term deficits. We should do this, because like the monies used to purchase machines, these investments will yield "profits" in the long term by reducing the overall cost of delivering health care in this country. This, in turn, will free up monies for businesses to invest in machines, rather than to pay out as premiums to the health insurance companies that currently soak up business capital in our inefficient health care delivery system.

Alfred Y. Kirkland Jr.

Elgin