Reader Opinion

Higher wages, single-payer plan would save health care

Jeff McCuddin - Fairmont, Minn.

Health care is the most important issue facing this nation ("Dishonest debate mars bid to overhaul health care," Our view, Medical reform debate, Friday).

If we continue down the road we're on, we pass more debt to the next generation. Insurance companies are the problem. The solution: a law requiring a company that offers health insurance to employees to take the amount it pays, plus the amount the employees pay for coverage, and add it to the employee's wages. Then we should switch to a single-payer system. The added wages would be taxable income and would give the middle class more money to spend, stimulating the economy.

I'd rather have the government make my health care decisions than an insurance company or hospital that's worried about profits.

ER efficient place for care

Nick Jouriles, president American College of Emergency Physicians - Washington, D.C

Despite the fact that many wait to get medical care in emergency rooms, a form of care deemed "inefficient" in a recent USA TODAY editorial, the emergency department is actually the most efficient part of our health care system. It draws on every hospital resource — labs, radiology, pharmacy and other specialists. Were a patient to attempt to seek those services individually, it would cost far more and take much more time.

Furthermore, emergency care consumes only 3% of the nation's health care dollars while treating 120 million people a year, the vast majority of whom are insured and very sick or injured. The problems in our health care system are legion, and nobody has a more up close and personal view of that than the nation's emergency physicians. Instead of bashing our safety net, we need to recognize emergency departments as a critical, life-and-death part of the health care system that needs help now.

Doctors not easily swayed

Nancy A. Mondero - Rehoboth Beach, Del.

The article "Industry donates to foes of drug plan" states that lawmakers who depend on pharmaceutical company contributions are leading the opposition to allow generic drugs to compete with pricey biotech drugs (News, July 29). Recipients of the contributions claim donations don't impact their policy decisions, and that they don't take contributions into account when making decisions.

As a physician, I find this very ironic. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America announced voluntary guidelines that forbid drug companies from giving us tablets and pens with their brand-name drug on it. According to Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., Congress was a factor behind this announcement, and had been pushing PhRMA to make such reforms "for some time now."

Members of Congress decided we'd be swayed to prescribe expensive drugs because we use a pen. Don't they realize insurance companies have the final say in which drugs patients are allowed to have?

Comparing physicians and Congress, I think there's a better chance of Congress voting for a policy that advances drug companies: Contributions to politicians far exceed the cost of a pen.

Posted at 12:10 AM/ET, August 06, 2009 in Health care/Insurance - Letters, Letter to the editor

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