Single-Payer Initiative

Although Sally C. Pipes’ anti-government hysteria piece, “All Bow to the State Health Czar” (Commentary, Aug. 26), does not show any appreciation of the bureaucratic monstrosity that the private health insurance industry has wrought upon Californians, a truly honest analysis of Prop. 186 (the single-payer state health reform initiative) would identify how much of our current health care premiums are devoured by insurance company profits and ineptitude.

If she believes that a health delivery system whereby the state, rather than insurance companies, channels money from our wallets to doctors and hospitals would reduce service or lower choice, she’d be wise to re-examine what we are getting for our money right now.

Imagine--a “patient’s provider of choice will probably not really be the doctor of the patient’s choosing but a primary care provider,” she writes. Where has she been? Millions of us with adequate health coverage from our employers must use a primary care provider, who we are very fortunate to have. For this privilege, my HMO receives over 8% of my paycheck, much of it ending up in the insurance companies’ political advertising against health reform of any kind.

Instead of focusing only on what a state single-payer system can’t provide, people should think about what services their current coverage (if they have any) won’t provide, and how much it’s costing us today.

MARK MIODOVSKI

Long Beach

* “Getting a Jump on Health Care” (by Bill Zimmerman and Pacy Markman, Commentary, Aug. 24) presented a compelling argument for the passage of Prop. 186. As a physician and a health care consumer, I heartily endorse this proposal. My only question is, why can’t a single-payer plan be adopted on the national level? The obvious answer is that our spineless politicians are afraid to buck the multibillion-dollar insurance industry. Too bad for us!

ALAN L. BROOKS MD

Long Beach

* Since when has government control of anything saved money? If Zimmerman’s and Markman’s prattle about the vast savings to flow from eliminating private medical insurance in California under Prop. 186 were true, the Soviet Union should have been the richest country in the world since they did away with private everything.

The only things that socializing health insurance in California will do away with are our freedom to choose our doctors and the type of insurance plans we want, followed by our jobs, as businesses leave for neighboring states to escape the ruinous taxes that will need to be imposed to pay for this plan.

RON M. KAGAN

Los Angeles

* The issue of socialized medicine notwithstanding, Zimmerman and Markman present a well-balanced view of Prop. 186 except for one substantial omission. The elected servants of this state have not demonstrated the ability, nor even the inclination, to run any program as designed, and certainly not with the public’s best interest at the forefront. They’ve bankrupted the system; Prop. 186 would only give them another cash cow to milk.

Prop. 186 is probably no better or worse than any other that we have, but before we throw good money after bad, let’s have more responsible public servants in office, see that they are able to overcome personal greed, special interest groups and partisan politics, and then, maybe, let them have some new toys to play with.

NEIL D. HAMILTON

Redondo Beach