Writer Clarifies Her OPTIMA Coverage
This is to correct an error and to give credit where credit is due. The error was in a letter of mine about the county program OPTIMA, which you printed Nov. 20. What I said in the letter was based upon misinformation gleaned while talking with OPTIMA.
Credit is due to Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder. Even though I do not live in her district, her office phoned me, asking if I had talked with OPTIMA. When I told Wieder’s assistant that OPTIMA was where I had gotten my information, she told me that existing patient-doctor relationships will be continued and that there will be no problem about repeat visits for my ongoing conditions. She also said that, although nothing has been decided about prescriptions, she sees no reason why I cannot continue using the same, convenient, pharmacy that I am using now. Supervisor Wieder deserves credit for contacting people outside of her district in order to ensure accuracy.
In contrast, the supervisor for my district merely wrote me that old political standby: a good-doggie-down-Fido letter. These letters sound nice at first reading but, when examined more closely, are found to be lacking in information and/or assistance and/or interest in your viewpoints.
JUANITA MATASSA
Santa Ana
* In regard to Juanita Matassa’s letter, “Health Plan Robs Poor of Dignity” (Nov. 20):
I took offense at the implication that only the poor have lost “self-determination” in regard to their health care.
I am a white, middle-class, college-educated, credentialed teacher, teaching in a private school. My employer offers a PPO or HMO through a major insurance carrier. Most of my co-workers and I cannot afford the luxury of the PPO. I have had four changes of plans in four years. A few weeks ago, my colleagues and I were given 24 hours’ notice that most of our doctors had been dropped from our plan and we were assigned to yet another group of doctors we knew nothing about.
The poor, who benefit from the hard-earned tax dollars of people like myself, need to realize that they are not the only group that have no self-determination in their health care. Few of us do.
GLORIA STEELE
Mission Viejo
