For-Profit Health Insurance
Re “Choices in Health Insurance,” editorial, Nov. 14: As long as there is a for-profit health insurance industry, there will be no real choice. Even the UnitedHealth Group decision to allow doctors to hospitalize and refer patients to specialists without prior authorization was a decision based on improving profits, not patient care.
This country must find a way to provide necessary medical coverage for everyone. The current system wastes huge amounts of money on marketing, redundant administrations and obscene executive salaries. This is money that could be better spent on patient care. It leaves 44 million people without any coverage.
Health maintenance must truly be maintenance of health by vaccination programs, Pap smears and prompt access to care. Oversight must continue, not to protect profits, but to assure that the use of medical services is appropriate and not wasteful.
The answer is a national health service, where everyone will be covered and have the same choices, not the wasteful, crazy-quilt system that we have now.
MELVIN H. KIRSCHNER MD
Van Nuys
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The example of the American Medical Assn.’s proposal to give workers a federal tax credit for the purchase of health care leads to the conclusion that this outcome, like most reforms, warrants a public policy study based upon standards of outcomes.
Currently, employee-based health coverage has been declining. One of the reasons cited is that the rising share of employee premiums results in employees declining coverage. Were we to see a tax credit going to the employee, rather than the employer, would this then raise the premium costs? If fewer employees opt to take on this initial outlay, wouldn’t the remaining costs to fewer employees be even higher? Would this proposal by the AMA result in a higher number of uninsured, shaking an already shaky base?
The actual result of increasing the number of uninsured is too high a cost for society to take on. Let’s talk about how we can provide the broadest base that ensures security and assured affordability.
SHEILA HOFF
Health Care for All
California Vice Chair
Rancho Palos Verdes