OPINIONLetters to the Editor - Nov. 19, 2007SCHIP bill would have been "first big step" towards socialized medicine - Insurers distort the proper economics of providing heath care in this country SCHIP bill would have been "first big step" towards socialized medicineRegarding "After Bush veto, SCHIP strategy shifts to courting override votes" (Article, Oct. 15): AMA Board of Trustees Chair Edward L. Langston, MD, said that the AMA "strongly urges" members of Congress to override President Bush's SCHIP veto. Does this statement mean that our AMA now actually wants socialized medicine? Nearly everyone who has closely examined the proposed SCHIP bill recognizes it as the first big step toward complete socialized medicine. Middle-class parents will drop their private health insurance like a hot potato -- right into the taxpayers collective lap. I have seen medical care go from complete fee for service to socialized government medicine in only one generation. --Ted Yaeger, MD, Lenoir, N.C. Insurers distort the proper economics of providing heath care in this countryRegarding "Addressing health care costs -- the right way" (Editorial, Oct. 15): I am amazed at the platitudes that pass as serious repair of our broken health care system. Your suggestions are vague, useless and ineffectual because they do not strike at the heart of the problem. We will not have a health care system in this country with reasonable cost until we have a market system controlled by buyers and sellers of health care without the market-distorting presence of insurance companies. The true cost of health care will be known when doctors sit across the table from patients to determine the price of the product. A few questions will illustrate my point: What do insurance companies do? What value do they add to the system they are so deeply invested in? Why do we need them? Why are they involved in health care? Why do we buy our health care from insurance companies instead of from the people who create it? Insurance companies are public companies; that is, they are stock companies whose first and last responsibility is to their stockholders, who may or may not be patients. If the patient happens to be a shareholder, he will benefit in the profits. If he is not, then he loses as the profits are drained away from the health care system to enrich the company, its officers and shareholders. There was a time when people saw their doctors, were treated and paid their bills. This was not so long ago, certainly before and just after World War II. Unfortunately, the present generation of physicians, so-called health economists and other health professionals are too young or too uneducated in modern economic history to remember these golden years of physician independence, respect and financial security. A first step in regaining our economic integrity and controlling the cost of health care is to restore market principles, free of the incubus of insurance companies. We should not be going to these people as mendicants for the 1% or 2% increase in our fees every year. They know nothing of medicine. They do not know what we go through every day of our lives caring for the sick of this nation. They know profits. Let them find the profits somewhere else. --Roger W. Cyrus, MD, Madison, Conn. Copyright 2007 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
|
The doctors are in the house
The AMA's House of Delegates is holding its Interim Meeting Nov. 7-10 in Houston, addressing issues such as health system reform and physician payment. Meeting coverage - Slideshow Feature articlesHealth reform review The Massachusetts experience Litigation stress Being sued is personal as well as professional Comprehensive coverage
Most-viewed
Nov. 9 issueHouse option for public plan wouldn't limit physician pay to Medicare rates New database for out-of-network pay set to replace disputed Ingenix system Columns and series
From the vault: 5 years agoGenetic testing issues land in primary care practices Nov. 8, 2004 
|
