Health-Care Inequity

On one day we learn that Jeffrey Barbakow of Tenet Healthcare makes $22.5 million a year and Leonard Schaeffer of Wellpoint Health Networks makes $16.7 million a year.

The next day we see that PacifiCare is cutting Medicare patients because “federal reimbursement . . . does not produce substantial income” [“PacifiCare to Cut Loose 26,600 Medicare Patients,” July 6].

How substantial an income do these companies want? Why do we continue to pad the pockets of these companies when they don’t improve care or reduce costs?

Until there is widespread public outrage, the lobbyists for the managed-care, for-profit health-care industry will continue to have their way with our elected representatives, preventing enactment of an equitable and cost-effective single-payer system.

Dr. GERALD GOLLIN

Assistant Professor

of Pediatric Surgery

School of Medicine

Loma Linda University

Loma Linda