Quality of Health Care Is at Issue

* William Stanton is certainly right on nearly every count regarding UCI Medical Center physicians group terminating its Medicare HMO contracts (Letter, Nov. 18).

The exception is that neither UCI nor any other health care providers can survive for long by adopting a “serve the people first” mission when the federal government is sabotaging their very existence by arbitrarily and progressively trimming reimbursement for most health care services.

Stanton’s fear that we are heading toward a two-tier health care system is not merely rhetorical.

My biggest fear is that there will not be any quality health care available at all should a major illness strike me in the not too distant future.

It is time the public starts to realize that cheaper health care is often not a bargain and all of the new medical innovations will amount to naught unless there are enough qualified people and facilities to deliver and manage them.

Perhaps one way to get out of this undertow is to redirect the health insurance purchasing decision back to the individual.

To boost the worth of his own stock option and bonus, a company’s CEO may sail on the health care Titanic, short a few life boats. However, he should not expect anyone else to accompany him without full knowledge of this deficiency.

Yet this is precisely the itinerary often booked by elected officials for their constituents and the package sold by bosses to their employees.

JOHN T. CHIU, MD

Newport Beach