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Re: Malpractice debate gets new tack, July 31.
Florida physicians' ability to provide health care services is headed into a "death spiral." The issue is multifactorial, but at the heart of the problem is that physicians are no longer able to afford their practice overhead. Decreasing insurance reimbursements, increasing malpractice insurance, increasing health insurance for employees, higher office rent and salaries, increased staff to handle managed-care insurance, additional nursing staff to respond to insurance authorization requirements and the requests to change patient care as prescribed by the physician, having to justify medical care to insurance companies instead of treating patients - these are causing physicians to close their practices and to leave the state.
Physicians have been forced to look at their practices as businesses. This is not against the Hippocratic Oath but simply a fact of life. The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville has been in the financial red in recent years and has taken the unprecedented step of no longer accepting Medicare assignment. It is guaranteed that the clinic will not be seeing Medicaid patients as well, and this comes not out of greed but strictly as a business decision.
Florida, wake up! With a Legislature that is unable to address tort reform and a federal government that cannot find money to increase physician payment for services, the health care death spiral has begun. With no new physicians to replace those who are leaving the state or taking early retirement, who will provide our health care? In fact, a grim future may be just around the corner if tort reform is not adequately addressed and the payment by programs such as Medicare and Medicaid continue in their downward course as they have over the past 10 years.
We were told that we should let "market forces" replace regulation in determining the premiums insurance companies charge us. We allowed that.
Now we are being told that we should let regulation - a $250,000 cap - replace the "market forces" of trial by jury in determining the redress we receive from those insurance companies when they harm us. If we allow that, will we have traded regulation of insurance companies for regulation of ourselves?
Government is, by definition, regulation. Will we have traded government by we, the people, for government by them, the insurance companies?
Recently there have been special sessions of the Florida Legislature to address the medical malpractice insurance "crisis." There is a larger problem for Hillsborough residents, it is homeowners' insurance, and the difficulty we owners of older houses are having keeping our homes insured. I have had three different insurers in the past nine months, and all have dropped my coverage for administrative reasons. The premiums were fully paid and a claim was never made.
Our elected officials should look into this problem. It is of potentially devastating economic impact to the community should a disaster occur. Many voters could not afford to rebuild a home on their own after a storm without insurance. Insurance companies should not be able to dictate in what type of home a citizen would live.
Re: Scrutinize insurance, letter, Aug. 2.
Rep. Kevin Ambler says that because Allstate's profits are up 70 percent, it has become a greedy company. Did he ever think that if Allstate's profits are up, it means fewer people filing for disability, fewer home fires, fewer fatal accidents on our roads and, most of all, no major hurricanes. If Allstate is doing well, it means fewer layoffs, more people giving the best service possible in times of need and a more secure pension and profit sharing for its employees.
Who wants lower premiums if it takes months or years to collect on a claim? Everyone needs insurance and, yes, many people pay insurance all their lives and never file a claim. All it takes is one little fire or fender bender to make you realize that you can't afford to be without insurance at a time when repair costs are sky high.
I have been an Allstate employee for 28 years and am proud to say I am "In Good Hands."
Re: Top brass drive snazzy seized vehicles, Aug. 5.
The Tampa police top brass and Mayor Pam Iorio can sugarcoat this terrible "to the victor goes the spoils policy," but any rational person looking at this from the outside knows that this is just plain wrong! And there certainly is a lot of waste in using these SUVs confiscated by the police: The last time I checked, the Lincoln Navigator and vehicles of its ilk received hideous gas mileage (something I'm sure the taxpayer at large is also responsible for).
If perception is reality, I perceive this to be poor decisionmaking at best, and somewhat shy of criminal at worst!
Re: Top brass drive snazzy seized vehicles.
For the Tampa Police Department to claim that driving these cars saves taxpayer money is misleading. As these cars are passed around from driver to driver, who foots the bill when they break down? If there happens to be an accident, who foots the bill? Or do you junk the vehicle? Everyone knows it costs several times more to repair these "luxury" automobiles than the common person's auto.
The drivers of these cars are on ego trips. It's like riding in a limo. They "feel" important. I have just lost faith and respect for the mayor of Tampa.
I see nothing wrong with using one of these cars for police undercover work. The other cars should be sold and the funds used to "really" save the taxpayers money. The cars should not be used for ego trips.
Re: Top brass drive snazzy seized vehicles.
The caption on the photo accompanying the article said the vehicle ". . . was confiscated from a man accused of dealing drugs." Did something happen to the Fourth Amendment while I was sleeping or are accusations all that are necessary these days?
The American Jewish Committee has expressed concerns about assertions that opponents of the nomination of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the federal bench are motivated by anti-Catholic bigotry.
In our pluralistic democracy, religion has no relevance in assessing whether a candidate should serve on our nation's highest courts. Just as religion tests for public office are wrong, so too is the attempted silencing of legitimate debate with the false stigma of religious bigotry.
In recent days, discussion in the Senate and advertisements in newspapers have raised the issue of Pryor's faith in a manner that tars legitimate concerns over his nomination as being anti-Catholic.
While the AJC has a longstanding policy of not taking positions on judicial nominations, we cannot remain silent in the face of efforts to inject religion into the nominations process. Questions about legal matters are appropriate, but inquiries about a nominee's religious affiliation or degree of religious commitment are repugnant to the principles of religious liberty and equality enshrined in the Constitution.
The groundbreaking election of President John F. Kennedy in 1960, followed by the historic vice presidential nomination of Sen. Joseph Lieberman three years ago, showed that Americans reject the notion that religious affiliation is relevant to one's qualifications for public service. AJC calls on all parties to reaffirm that principle.
Re: A record of church wrongs, July 29.
Your editorial on the abuses committed in the Boston Archdiocese over the past 60 years was gentler than it should have been, and part of the shame is that culpable church officials can't be criminally prosecuted. Even the investigation and grand jury findings can be little comfort to those whose lives have been forever twisted. Hasn't the Catholic Church in many places in America mocked and violated all of the best values and beliefs it should stand for?
What is incomprehensible to me is why the laity in many places simply don't reject the authority of church leadership and initiate a cleansing process of those who are most un-Christian. Of course the laity has responded in some places, and the bishops have held conferences that showed some modest reformist impulses. The general silence from Rome has been rather deafening.
While not Catholic, I know the church comforts many of its members, and Catholic Charities, its philanthropic arm, does much good. It is incredibly sad that the scandal and harm done to many has apparently produced so little enduring change. Forgiveness is a venerable Christian belief and practice, but the events you describe and others truly test its outer limits.
Re: Government-sanctioned bliss, by Michael Tanner, July 30.
Michael Tanner asserts that "marriage is a good thing. A substantial body of research shows that... high marriage rates are good for society."
My grandparents married when my grandfather first opened his own barbershop. She was 15 and he was 23. My grandmother had her first child nine months after the wedding, at 16. They managed to survive the Great Depression and to successfully raise seven children to adulthood. My father was among those children.
The secret to successfully fighting poverty is not for young people to avoid pregnancy but for them to sustain their lifelong commitments to each other. Young as they were when they married, my grandparents remained married to each other for their entire lives. They and their generation did not consider marriage to be disposable.
Today, my grandfather would be arrested as a child molester and would be subject to having his whereabouts published throughout his life so that his neighbors would know him as a danger in their midst. Today, people consider marriage to be expendable and accept the resulting dysfunctional families as the norm.
Over the decades since my grandparents' wedding, I think that our modern priorities have become sadly misplaced.
With all that is going on in this country and the world, why would President Bush take the month of August off for yet another of his "working vacations"? Is he looking to set another record? He already has "biggest deficit in history." Now he's going for "most vacation taken." Unbelievable.
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