Assisted Suicide

Laura Remson Mitchell’s “Red Flag on the Slippery Slope” (Commentary, Feb. 2) can be described only as a science fiction horror piece--with emphasis on the fiction. The notion that physician-assisted suicide would become legal in California in a way that would impose it on people who don’t want it ignores the enduring wisdom of the voters and the constitutional protections we all enjoy.

Far more fictional, however, is her preposterous prediction that legalized physician-assisted suicide would be used by profit-seeking health care companies to save money. She notes accurately that HMOs are obligated by law to cover any medically necessary drug for a patient with an illness, but then goes on to suggest that HMOs would do otherwise under a physician-assisted suicide law. Physician-assisted suicide would not allow HMOs to “simply drop expensive treatments and services from the plan’s benefit package.” Such action would be illegal.

HMOs cannot cut back on coverage of any type of treatment, nor exclude coverage for any particular disease. HMOs must, by law, cover all medically necessary care for all medical conditions. And the members of the California Assn. of Health Plans would never support any weakening of the existing law in this area. Any such weakening would be unconscionable.

MYRA C. SNYDER

President and CEO

California Assn. of Health Plans

Sacramento