Unfettered Letters

Congress will destroy health care, too

Doesn’t the federal government destroy virtually everything it touches? And yet, you want that same government to control your health care? Doesn’t this apply to everything else this administration and a liberal-controlled Congress wants to touch?

What will this nation look like four years from now? Will it look more like the wonderful nation we’ve grown up with or will it look like something far worse?

Glen Averill
Olathe

Single-payer health care pitfall

There are three aspects to health care: quality, access, and price. Only two of the three can be controlled. If we choose to keep quality and access, then price cannot be controlled. If we want price controlled, then quality, access or both will be sacrificed.

Every merchant realizes that the lower the price of an item, the greater the demand. For example, in Austin, Texas, nine individuals used emergency room services 2,678 times within six years. The average emergency room visit costs $1,000. But why not? There was no cost to the patients.

Universal, single-payer health care will improve our health system how? How can access and quality be maintained when there would no longer be an apparent cost to the patient for going to the doctor?

Jerry P. Murray
Centerview, Mo.

Americans want universal care

I appreciate The Star’s support of the State of Missouri changing the Medicaid eligibility standard (3/29, Opinion, “Better health care needed for the working poor”). I am outraged that a family of four with an annual income of $4,411 does not qualify for Medicaid! But the solution to America’s health care crisis lies with the federal government.

The article “Support grows for care cure; But rifts remain over a government insurance plan and how to pay for more health coverage” (3/29, A-8) indicated that a single-payer insurance system is “all but ruled out” of federal consideration. There is pressure from the insurance industry to squelch any kind of “public plan option.”

Rep. Roy Blunt’s aide was quoted: “A government-controlled plan available to every American will push 160 million Americans now in private plans into a one-size-fits-all bureaucratic plan.”

But Americans wouldn’t need to be pushed. If a program similar to traditional Medicare were available, we’d leave the nightmare of private health insurance in droves.

See Physicians for a National Health Program (www.PNHP.org) for thorough, easy-to-digest information on the merits of universal health insurance.

Mary Lindsay
Kansas City

U.S. health care

While I agree with Steve Luptak (3/26, Letters, “U.S. needs health-care reform now”), I find it necessary to add to his comments.

Our government needs to look at the cost of how much doctors charge patients and how much the insurance companies pay the doctors. We need to reevaluate the HMO and PPO systems.
Doctors charge us a fee for an office visit, but the insurance company pays only on the contract amount they have
with the doctors, which can be reduced by as much as half. Insurance companies and doctors offices spend countless hours on contracts, pushing the total cost of care up considerably.

The policyholder also has a new contract every year, for which the cost continues to increase. All this paperwork for, quite often, a simple doctor’s visit.

For my son’s last ear infection, the doctors sent the insurance company bills totaling about $350. My last ER bill for an arm X-ray was more than $900. Charging fees like this has to stop. We need a more efficient way to run our system. Getting rid of the contracts for the doctors and the consumer buying health insurance would go a long way toward cutting costs.

Jennie Sindak
Overland Park

I, like millions of other Americans, already have single-payer health care. When the medical bills come to my house, there is only one person responsible for them: me.

The idea of using tax credits or medical savings accounts are not at all viable for someone on minimum wage or trying to support a family on low wages. Cost controls, electronic records and a single-payer system will save this country from paying such a high price for less service. Employers could save as they would no longer have to pay for the medical part of worker’s compensation as well as health insurance for their employees.

It is time to stop insurance companies from making medical decisions and give those decisions back to the doctors and the patients.

Jeffery C. Humfeld
Kansas City

After more than 30 years of experience with the practice of medicine and taking care of patients in this country, I have been persuaded, as has Michael Moore, that single-payer health care is the only rational and fair option for adequate and affordable care for all people in this nation. Anything less is a cop-out and a sell-out to for-profit greed.

Health care cannot be a for-profit endeavor.

David Oberdorfer
Bonner Springs

Universal care would cut costs

Penny wise, pound foolish. In her “As I see it” column (3/25, Opinion, “General Assembly falling short on children’s health”), Charron Townsend decries the Missouri lawmakers’ decision to strip financing for children’s health benefits. But let’s not limit it to both children and Missouri.

We face a nationwide crisis of bankrupting families with a health system that is wasteful and ineffective. It’s ineffective in cost versus benefits, enriching insurance companies and preventing early care and diagnosis of potentially devastating conditions that ultimately blossom into catastrophic and expensive treatments.

The conservative argument, besides the specter of “socialism,” is that the government will mess up. Any conscious person will say “What do we have now?” If, for example, we had one agency to straighten out the prescription drug monster, we could probably save millions on the cumbersome system that exists now.

Some estimate that shuffling records contributes to 40 percent of medical costs, so the new administration’s idea of having a national database for billing and record-keeping would reduce health-care costs significantly. An additional benefit would be a means of tracking fraud.

Businesses would also gain by relief from expenses of employee health plans if a national universal health plan were in place.

H.M. Brown
Westwood Hills

The ‘right’ to health care

The Obama administration evidently thinks that everyone has the “right” to all of the medical care they need or want — except those who have earned it. That reflects the ghastly moral corruption that government brings to its control of health care. Thank you for calling attention to this (3/20, Opinion, “U.S. has obligation to veterans”). The plan was not “unfair” but outrageous.

First it must be stated that the treatment of combat injuries is not welfare but a richly deserved moral commitment to those who have risked their lives defending our freedom. As it is, politicians who maintain that everyone has a “right” to health care really mean that no one has a right to any health care unless they get it from the government.

When we see how the government cares for combat veterans, what should the rest of us expect when the government controls and rations all health care?

Richard E. Ralston
Executive director, Americans for Free Choice in Medicine
Newport Beach, Calif.

Free Health Clinic thanks volunteers

It is a time of uncertainty and anxiety when it comes to the economy and to health care. This week is Cover the Uninsured Week across the nation. The Jackson County Free Health Clinic provides care for low-income, uninsured adults who suffer chronic illnesses. The need for our services is increasing every day.

Despite the increased demand and strain, our volunteers faithfully show up and dispense incredible care and compassion to the patients who need them. I take this opportunity to salute them for their dedication.

I thank all of those who support the clinic with time, talent and donations. Your generosity makes it possible to make our community healthier.

Bridget McCandless
Medical director, Jackson County Free Health Clinic
Independence

Health and economic crises linked

I agree wholeheartedly with Dick Sumpter (3/15, Letters, “Obama’s ‘cure’ has vision”). We need “systems thinking” to find a cure for our economy.

Recently I attended a health-care conference at Johnson County Community College. The three speakers emphasized that the health-care crisis is inextricably embedded in the economic crisis. If you lose your job, and your health insurance, and get sick, you are likely to default on your mortgage payments and then to go bankrupt.

Uncompensated care, that is, care given in emergency rooms to people without insurance, costs billions of dollars annually. Of course, the insured actually pay for this, which is one reason health-care costs are soaring.

Compare this crisis to someone going into shock. The health-care provider can’t say, “I’ll just stop the hemorrhaging now and treat the kidney failure later.” No! It’s all at once or not at all.

Judith L. Zillner
Shawnee

Easing COBRA's squeeze

The federal stimulus package delivers newly unemployed workers some much-needed relief by subsidizing health insurance purchased through COBRA - the law that allows workers to keep their employer-provided health insurance for up to 18 months after they leave their jobs. But for some folks, COBRA plans may prove too expensive - even with the government subsidy.

Fortunately, unemployed workers have other options for maintaining coverage. The stimulus package also allows people to switch to a less expensive employer-sponsored plan, if available, when they become COBRA-eligible. And folks who opt for a cheaper employer-sponsored policy through COBRA are still eligible for the new government subsidy.

This provision will help many find a policy that fits within their budget. Laid-off workers should be sure to take advantage.

Janet Trautwein
Executive vice president and CEO
National Association of Health Underwriters
Arlington, Va.

Health-care reform

Barbara Shelly’s column “Too long delayed, health reform simply can’t wait” (3/6, Opinion) brought my simmer to a boil. A family loses a mom to catastrophic illness and, on top of that, loses their home because the insurance stopped when the mom was so sick she could no longer keep the job that provided access to health insurance?

It is unfathomable that we can bail out mortgages of people who borrowed too much to get a house bigger than they needed or could afford, and pay executives millions of dollars for making stupid or illegal decisions that have resulted in this huge economic mess, but we punish decent people trying to do the right thing who have the great misfortune of getting sick and dying.

Short of overhauling the whole health-care system (which desperately needs to be done), we could fast-track people into the Medicare/disability system when they can’t keep working because they are fighting for their lives.

Oops, guess we can’t afford that!

Susan Wyssmann
Kansas City

It was immediately after World War II that amid the bombed-out buildings and weak economy, the British adopted their nation’s health-care system.

In England (and other industrialized countries) productive citizens don’t have to worry about medical bankruptcy.

Rae Ann Nixon
Kansas City