From the Los Angeles Times

Letters to the editor

April 21, 2008

Health insurers under the gun

Re "Hope for patients who lost policies," April 18

I have been in the individual and group health insurance business since 1982. Insurers used to require that doctors fill out an "attending physician's statement" on each individual requesting coverage. This gave the insurer the opportunity to underwrite before issuing a policy. This became too cumbersome, and subsequently extensive health questions were asked on applications; that became an invasion of privacy and prompted the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Insurers then adopted short health questionnaires but were forced to underwrite policies after issuance, at claim time for fraudulent applications or omissions.

No one can run a business successfully without assessing risk. I don't know the answer, but I feel that insurers have tried to comply with applicants' concerns at almost all junctures.

Gale Gousha

Upland

This article didn't mention the sickest patient of all -- the healthcare system. It all comes down to dollars and sense -- too many of our healthcare dollars are spent on insurance administration. Removing insurers from the equation would allow coverage for millions of uninsured consumers.

Government agencies are finally stepping in to stop insurers from rescinding patients' coverage after they make a claim. But when will Americans demand a single-payer healthcare program? Enacting a bill sponsored by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) would be a good start.

Lynda A. Hernandez

Huntington Beach

Amazing! Cindy Ehnes, director of the California Department of Managed Health Care, says that she has been working on the egregious practice of healthcare firms' rescissions. Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown also claims to have been investigating the issue for quite a while. Suddenly, government officials are tripping over each other in a classic "Me, too, and have been for a long time" response. To quote Bob Dylan, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

Jack Rosenberg

Redondo Beach

Re "Insurer sued over rescissions," April 17

Although I think Anthem Blue Cross should feel the full power of the proper regulatory agencies for the way it has handled some of its rescissions, I wonder exactly what L.A. City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo is planning on running for? It looks as though he is trying to clean up his reputation. These rescission cases should be handled by the state and not by each city.

Gene Rowe

Encino

I hope all three major presidential candidates will sniff out the importance of the accusations Delgadillo is making with regard to Anthem Blue Cross. No one in the national debate on healthcare is addressing the most fundamental question about healthcare, one that the Blue Cross suit obliquely raises: Exactly what level of service, at what cost, constitutes health coverage? Politicians talk about people having coverage and making sure people are insured as if having a written policy with an insurer's name on it has anything to do with access to affordable healthcare.

Anyone paying $7,000 to $14,000 a year for a family or individual policy, with a $2,500 deductible per person, knows that this kind of so-called coverage means you'd better not get sick. That's not health coverage. Meanwhile, our candidates and both houses of Congress are avoiding the simple truth underlying the city attorney's action -- that as long as we leave insurance companies to decide what constitutes "health insurance," the problem will continue to worsen.

Delgadillo is on the right track. I just wish Washington were.

John Morell

Ojai

Execution is never humane

Re "High court finds lethal injections are humane," April 17

Is it just me, or is there something oxymoronic about the headline, "High court finds lethal injections are humane"?

Margaret

Baker Davis

La Verne

Why not eliminate the subsequent litigation even the Supreme Court justices admit is likely to result from their lethal-injection ruling by switching to pills to administer the lethal drugs?

Putting a lethal dose of barbiturates in pills eliminates all the problems of using lethal injections -- finding a suitable vein, positioning the needle, being sure it doesn't come out, using a syringe, problems with tubing crimping or clogging -- which can and apparently have caused excruciating pain.

John F. Banzhaf

Washington

The writer is a professor of public interest law at George Washington University Law School.

Gazing at this bold headline, my wife excitedly remarked, "High court finds lethal injections are humane."

Then she read a little further and sounded disappointed, saying, "Oh, that's for the death penalty."

"What did you think it meant?" I asked.

"I thought it was for us. You know, for when we're terminally ill and living a horrible life of excruciating pain."

"No," I answered. "The high court finds lethal injections for us inhumane."

Randy Kemner

Long Beach

That a newspaper would have the occasion to publish the headline "High court finds lethal injections are humane" proves that our society is besotted by liberal insanity. Any child who's had a vaccination can tell you that an injection is more "humane" than gassing, electrocution or hanging. We have surrendered rationality to those who call themselves judges and humanitarians and demonstrate it by spitting on the graves of the innocent victims of bestial predators.

Charles K. Sergis

Redondo Beach

Re "Debating death," editorial, April 18

I applaud The Times for continuing your staunch stance against the death penalty. This country falls extremely short in leadership responsibility to most other countries in allowing this "anachronistic and inhumane punishment" to continue. I join you in calling on our lawmakers to abolish it.

Heidi Pickman

Oakland

State-sanctioned killing is barbaric, cruel and should be highly unusual. We should join the civilized countries of the world in eliminating it.

Joy Buckley

Los Angeles

Police policy makes no sense

Re "Bratton vows to clarify policy on immigrants," April 17

Once again, a public official has made a statement regarding illegal immigration that I don't understand. This time, it's L.A. Police Chief William J. Bratton: "If you are an illegal immigrant out there and basically you are obeying the law ... you don't have anything to fear from the Los Angeles police."

I have never understood this weird interpretation of the word "illegal" when attached to the word "immigrant." It's as if somehow the latter word cancels out the former. By the very nature of being an illegal immigrant, such an individual is breaking U.S. laws. Why is that so difficult for our officials to understand?

Mitch Carter

Woodland Hills

Amid all the talk about the illegal immigrants' fear of coming forward to police as a witness to gang crimes, might there not be virtue in turning the equation on its head? That is to say, any illegal immigrant who provides evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of a gang murderer gets moved immediately to the head of the queue for legalization.

Lorenzo Semple Jr.

Los Angeles

If Special Order 40 worked, the community would turn in criminals and we wouldn't have a gang problem. We need a leader who cares more about our safety and less about popularity.

Kathy Straedey

Los Angeles

Has anyone checked if Special Order 40 is working? Each time there is a gang shooting, there is a public appeal for witnesses to call the police. Does anyone call? It has nothing to do with immigration, legal or illegal. It has to do with fear of gang retaliation. Bratton is wrong. My taxes pay to support illegal immigrant gangsters now in our jails. Identify and deport them. Eliminate Order 40. It does not work.

Rosane Frederickson

Van Nuys

Be fair

Re "Bumped passengers due more cash from airlines," April 17

It is about time the airlines paid for their abusive overbooking policies. The same fines should apply to flights canceled for maintenance and lack of crews or crew rest. The fines should apply to each flight booked and delayed.

Alan L. Strzemieczny

Riverside