Miami Herald
Letter to the editor
To the Editor:
I enjoyed John Dorschner's excellent article on "Anxiety over medical costs" [Feb. 15, 2008] because, practicing doctors constitute one of the largest segments of the population that shares that anxiety.
Practicing doctors are well aware and agree with Grey Parston [of the Accenture Institute for Public Service Value] that the main trouble with medical care is it costs way too much. Doctors also know, and I doubt Parston does, that doctors receive less than 25 cents from healthcare dollars allocated for healthcare from government, business or individuals.
Parston writes that ''two dozen other countries have average life expectancy longer than that of Americans.'' Those reported statistics should be clarified. To start, we kill more than 800 people every week on our roadways. Unfortunately, in addition to these deaths, great numbers of young people die prematurely because of lifestyles, especially excessive use of alcohol and drugs.
Parson also reports ''the United States is the only country that doesn't offer universal healthcare.'' Circumstances have taken me to a number of those countries, and no country even approaches the largesse of U.S. medicine for its people.
It is significant that in 43 of the 65 years from 1940 to 2004, 76 Americans won Nobel prizes for medicine.
Anxiety will continue for doctors and their patients, until doctors and their patients are reunited and nonmedical government workers and managed care business entrepreneurs, however well intentioned, no longer are making medical decisions as they now do every single day.
Sincerely,
Edward R. Annis
AMA Past-President
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