Molina Deserves Praise for Health-Care Service

It never ceases to amaze me how no good deed goes unpunished (“HMO Criticized for High Profit From Low-Income Patients,” May 4).

Here is a company that was started by a culturally sensitive physician to meet unmet needs in the marketplace. Dr. C. David Molina exposed himself to great financial risk early in his venures just to ensure that minorities had some place to go to receive their medical care.

He served Latinos, Cambodians, Vietnamese and any other ethnic group that had not yet found its way into California’s health-care delivery system. He and his family, including his physician son and daughter, his wife and his younger son, an attorney, spent countless thousands of hours developing a medical network and management system that has come to be the industry standard in terms of access and cultural sensitivity.

What is not discussed is the untold tens of millions of dollars Molina Healthcare has saved the state of California (read taxpayers) in the process. Contracts such as Molina’s are based on a capitation/payment level equal to or less than 95% of what the state is otherwise paying for the same Medi-Cal population. This represents an immediate cost savings of 5% to the state.

The real story here is that Molina has taken a sector of the population no one else wanted and has developed a system to treat these neglected patients for 95% of what the state would otherwise pay. In doing so, they have managed to produce a profit of $30.5 million.

What does that say about the waste and inefficiencies that exist in the non-Molina Medi-Cal program?

Dan Alan Boswell

Upland