AMA Backs Medicare Plan

The AMA may be supporting the Republican contraction of Medicare (Oct. 11), but the AMA does not speak for me or, I’m sure, for many other physicians. How could I in good conscience support a program designed to take money away from the sick and poor in order to fund tax cuts for the rich and increased spending for the military (including more funding for multibillion- dollar weapons systems such as the B-1 bomber than even the military has requested).

It is said that the measure of morality of a society is how well it cares for the poor and helpless. By such measures our society is sorely in need of some soul-searching and reassessment.

ROGER WALSH MD, Ph.D., Professor, UC Irvine

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House Speaker Newt Gingrich wants doctors to be pitchmen for the House version of Medicare reform. The GOP in turn assures doctors that the reimbursement schedule (i.e., their pay) won’t be seriously affected. For this they get the endorsement of the AMA.

We are told that all Americans are in the same boat and need to make sacrifices. The problem here is the doctors have taken their usual table in the main dining room, while the aged and disabled are being lowered over the side in leaky lifeboats.

That whirling sound you hear is FDR and Hippocrates spinning in their graves.

JOHN BURGESS, Upland

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Re “What the Devil Are the Details?” editorial, Oct. 12:

It is strange indeed that Republicans can spend unlimited time and money on repeated hearings on Waco and Whitewater, but can’t allow the citizens they represent to get a glimpse of their plans to alter a system that serves millions of their constituents’ most fundamental health care needs. This is representative democracy? It’s more like protecting their welfare checks.

FRANKIE HALLER, Bellflower

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The Republican agenda for Medicare reminds me of the Vietnam War era, when the Army would destroy a Vietnamese village in order to “save” it. Their plan will destroy Medicare as we know it. The Republicans didn’t want Medicare in 1965 and they don’t want it now. They just want that tax cut for the top 6%, so they’re blowing smoke about saving Medicare.

C. F. STEWART, San Diego

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Eli Chezar accepts a common misunderstanding of Medicare when he states (letters, Oct. 10) that it is “not charity, but health insurance paid for by its recipients.” This is simply not true of Part B, for which no one ever paid for insurance. Part B is paid for by current payments of $46.10 per month and, since this falls far short of meeting the cost, by a subsidy from the federal treasury of more than twice the individual’s contribution. It seems to be terribly difficult for many retirees to acknowledge this outright subsidy and even more difficult to offer to give it up.

Carol Clever, on the same page, exhibits the same misunderstanding. If it is true that, as a bookkeeping matter, premiums which we pay for Part B are “sent directly to the general fund,” she should be aware that more than three times that amount is paid by the general fund to support Part B. A nice deal if you can get it, and you can get it as a Medicare Part B recipient.

Doubters may look it up in Health Care Financing Administration publication No. 02172, Page 2.

GENE BARMORE, Huntington Beach