Managed Care Improves Health

* So doctors are losing their patience with managed care (March 3)? I wonder if those same doctors complained when patients couldn’t afford health insurance or when the practice and outcomes in medicine were historically highly inconsistent?

Ten years ago, national mammography rates were a shameful 12%. Now, under managed care they are 72% for women over age 50, a 600% improvement. Extensive patient and physician education programs, implementation of scientifically sound guidelines, standardized measures and report cards and coverage of preventive health services have made this possible. Managed care, while far from perfect, is moving us as a society in the right direction with respect to health care affordability, quality and access.

Having been a practicing family physician, professor at a medical school, county health officer in public health and a physician working in an HMO, I can tell you that the “good old days” weren’t all that good. But then, I’ve never practiced medicine in South Dakota either.

SAM HO MD

Vice President, Medical Quality

PacifiCare Health Systems

Santa Ana

*

* I applaud the doctors who are beginning to resist HMO power by joining unions, resigning from HMOs and filing suit to protect patients. I firmly believe that all medical workers, from doctors and nurses on down, should be very well paid; after all, they are re- sponsible for our lives and our health. I feel just as firmly that profit-making by third parties (stockholders) is dangerous to our lives and health.

I do not know whether for-profit corporate health care can constitutionally be prohibited. I support a single-payer system as the best way to eliminate this greedy industry.

JULIE MAY

Los Angeles