Debate Continues Over Managed Care

I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to read James Flanigan’s column on health care [“For All the ‘Patients’ Rights’ Politics, Medical Costs Are Flaring Up Again,” Nov. 22]. I have despaired that the public will ever be offered some intelligent thinking on this subject, rather than the endless stream of moronic, self-serving polemics against managed care.

In our organization we conceive of managed care as taking care of one’s own family with one’s own money. That concept permits a healthy notion of limits, instead of the neurotic idea of entitlement to unlimited “care,” no matter how expensive, futile or even harmful. Ironically, people are more often comfortable with the application of such limits in fee-for-service medicine.

Let me suggest that you write a related column on the explosion in pharmaceutical costs. Pharmacy is the fastest-growing segment of health-care expenditures, soon to exceed hospital costs, and pharmaceutical companies’ profits are huge.

DR. DANIEL TEMIANKA

Medical director

Quality Management HealthCare

Partners Medical Group

Torrance