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Health care giants must settle their differences

Your newspaper has carried reports that United Health Care and HCA hospitals were unable to agree on a contract. As a result, 560,000 members, in an area defined as Hernando County south to Naples, will be affected. This limits those in Hernando County who contract with United Health Care to using either Brooksville Regional or Spring Hill Regional hospital.

For example, in Hernando County, under United Health Care, a heart care patient cannot use the state-of-the-art cardiac care facility at Oak Hill Hospital. He also cannot go to Bayonet Point Regional Medical Center if he wants his costs to be covered by his United Health Care policy. Anyone whose doctor practices only at HCA hospitals is affected. No matter where one lives in the area from Hernando County south to Naples, you will be affected if you are a United Health Care customer.

There has not been any word about whether these two giants in the health care industry have made further attempts to iron out their differences. I wonder if any of the 560,000 people who have insurance with these giants would like them to sit down again and settle their impasse.

Where are our local politicians in all of these localities? Where is the media? Where are all of the state representatives? Where are the medical organizations? Where are all the businesses who insure their employees with United Health Care? Where is the state insurance commission? Where is the AARP?

Has anyone taken a positive stance and worked openly to get these giant companies to return to the table with some positive arbitration for the benefit of the people they serve?

It is time that plenty of people cared about health care options in our country and did something meaningful about it. Given the philosophies they express to the public, there really should be no other option for HCA hospitals and the United Health Care system other than to settle their differences. Health care is a most critical issue for people of all ages today, and all 560,000 people need to care.

Lucy Basta, Brooksville

Pennies in tax relief is election-year pandering

People in communities across Florida are shouting for tax relief in a current environment of high insurance costs and rising property values in the recent housing boom.

The first public hearing on the Hernando County budget on Sept. 14 brought an interesting mix of individuals determined to vent their frustrations at the ever-rising tax burdens, given that opportunity by Commissioner Nancy Robinson's pre-election strategy for a token half-mill reduction in the tax rate, which would bring a $36-a-year tax break to the average property owner. That's the cost of a carton of cigarettes, or as someone in the audience suggested, a half-tank of gasoline.

Budget director George Zoettlein, however, projected dire results in the loss of revenue in the burgeoning requirements for meeting demands in government services in the next four years.

Interestingly, news stories the next day left out the one voice of reason offered by lawyer Joe Mason, who suggested not changing the millage rate. Otherwise, the crowd was so specific in its determination to shout and vent that many of us avoided the fray, embarrassed by the weighted objectives of those begging for a pittance of tax relief.

Other cities and communities experiencing the same demand for tax relief caved in, too, noting potholes would not be fixed, nor would culverts and roads improved, nor traffic lights or sidewalks installed. The same goes for improving or expanding parks for recreation, or facilitating infrastructure improvements in the interest of businesses that could help expand the economy and contribute to the tax base.

A typical example would be cutting deep into veterans' services that would expand the waiting time in the pursuit of claims for compensation and benefits from current levels to weeks and weeks, missing deadlines by the VA that would cost denials in claims under review.

It is easy to become experts in government management, as some who went to the podium insisted they were. It is popular for conservatives to call for status-quo, zero-based budget considerations that would drop us back to an easier, more relaxed county 10 years ago, without the demands of a bursting population we see now with packed roadways and speeding vehicles in an helter-skelter rush to take advantage of services in businesses, schools, industry and government.

It might be a smart election-year political ploy to take advantage of ill-informed residents by offering tax relief in pennies to win votes from the same people who are first to demand delivery of services by government, and who were wearing signs of protest and shouting for their fair share.

Deron Mikal, Brooksville

[Last modified September 24, 2006, 08:46:38]