Letters to the Editors

Money is key when comparing medical systems

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 8, 2000

Re: No humor in Canadian health care, June 3.

I think columnist Michelle Malkin "missed the real story." The Canadian comic was able to get fast and "the best" medical service in the United States, not because it was in the United States but because he has money. Does she believe that a poor person in the Mississippi Delta or Detroit's inner city will receive the same care?

I worked in an inner city clinic for two years, and I know the frustration of finding care or even the simplest medications for the working poor. Here in Florida, many doctors refuse care to Medicaid patients. Patients will often ignore their ailments in the hopes they will get better on their own. Then their only option winds up being a hospital emergency room.

Medicare will pay for a portion of an eligible person's medical care while sending him out with prescriptions for medications costing hundreds of dollars a month. Doe she eat or take her medicine? There are problems in both systems, but let's look at the reality of our system as well.
-- Fern Williams, Zephyrhills

Canadian system works

As a Canadian and part-time resident of Florida, I cannot help but object to Michelle Malkin's column in Saturday's Times. Let me tell you my personal contact with the system.

In October of 1996, my family doctor in Canada found a suspicious growth on my prostate during a routine examination. That same day I met with a urologist at the hospital, who confirmed the diagnosis and scheduled an ultra-sound and biopsy that same week. Following the confirmation of cancer, my wife and I were given the choice of several treatments, and at my age (74 at the time) we chose a hormonal method on the advice of the urologist.

As of now, the cancer has not enlarged, my urinary symptoms have diminished and I've had no further problems. All this took place in a two-week period. A year later, a persistent pain in my left hip was diagnosed as osteoarthritis, and after a three month wait I saw an orthopedic surgeon who recommended a total hip replacement. As this is considered elective surgery I waited the better part of a year for the operation. When it was finally completed (in June of '99) it was fully successful. On leaving the hospital, my total bill (and the only one I saw) was $6 for the telephone. I must admit that the cost of a semi-private room was picked up by a supplementary policy provided as part of my retirement package.

My point is that the Canadian system (at least in my case) does what it is designed to do. Urgent problems are dealt with quickly, but elective ones may take a while. You must admit, however, that the price is right!
-- Murray Wallace, Treasure Island

The managed care equalizer

Re: No humor in Canadian health care.

Toward the end of her column, Michelle Malkin makes the following statement: "Under the Canadian regime, bureaucrats -- not doctors, patients or hospitals -- set fees, make purchases and allocate resources."

We have that in the United States, too. It's called "managed care."
-- Henry P. Powers, Lutz

A system tainted by politics

Re: No humor in Canadian health care.

Michelle Malkin relates the tale of a man diagnosed with cancer who is faced with the inevitable delay to be endured in Canada's cash-strapped system and how he found such rapid relief at the University of Southern California Medical Center.

Malkin failed to answer some obvious questions: Since the Canadian health care plan will not pay for treatment outside the country and since the USC Medical Center doesn't operate as a charity, who paid for the man's expensive treatment? Malkin deliberately ignored the fact that those Americans with a health care plan -- and 40-million people don't have any health insurance -- will also face long waits for an appointment to see their primary care physician, who might then authorize an appointment with a neurologist. The patient will then wait for authorization from his PPO or HMO accountants to decide whether or not treatment is justified.

Is the Canadian system slow? You bet -- and so is ours unless you're wealthy enough to pay for your own treatment. Does the Canadian system cover everyone? You bet -- but our profit-oriented system, together with an increasing number of employers who refuse to provide health care coverage, leaves more and more working men, women and children without any health insurance. It would seem that they're expected to slowly sicken and die without making an unseemly fuss about it.

The reality emerging from our steadily degrading health care approach is that we have something worse than so-called socialized medicine: diagnosis and treatment by accountants. Real health care reform was blocked by Republicans financed by the insurance industry. Genuine reform will only happen when we elect representatives who are willing to represent the people and not the special interests who're stuffing their pockets with cash. Those of us wishing for a return to a genuine representative democracy must push for campaign finance reform that takes corporate and special interest bribery out of the electoral process.
-- Scott Mock, St. Petersburg

More anti-generic propaganda

Re: Drug price controls won't work, letter, May 31.

Alan Holmer's (Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of America, Washington, D.C.) propaganda letter in favor of mega name-brand pharmaceutical companies is a blatant example of the campaign of the past two years here in Florida, which has used disinformation, distortion of facts and studies, blathering, unsubstantiated rhetoric and outright lies during their efforts, led by DuPont, to prevent safely tested and approved generic drugs from benefiting Florida consumers while saving them hundreds of dollars per year per family on their prescription drugs.

I would basically agree with Holmer that increasing prices in foreign countries for American manufactured drugs will not work. And I, for one, wouldn't even have used that as a possible solution. We have no business telling foreign governments how to run things, most especially their health care systems, which have been documented in all industrialized nations as being superior to what the American health care system has become. What arrogance -- to tell other countries to make their prescription drug consumers suffer inflated prices just so those same companies can continue with their excess profits in the United States on the backs of American patients.

Holmer's letter is almost funny, if it were not so negatively impacting people's health care.

What about his comment that "prices are kept artificially low" in foreign countries and that this causes their "citizens to suffer the consequences"? Suffer what consequences? Lower prices, which he admits to? Broader availability of a wider range of products? Getting the medicines early enough to have them do what they are supposed to for safer health care and longer life? This is just the type of campaign that Florida legislators have been listening to for two years and, unfortunately, have been using as a basis (which substantiates their acceptance of campaign contributions) for voting in favor of the big brand-name companies and by so doing, not representing their constituencies back home.

Mr. Holmer, I offer you this challenge: Let's publicly debate this issue all around the state so that the truth will come out, rather than making sneak attacks such as in a letter to the editor, without giving the people the opportunity to learn the truth and respond in a responsible manner.

As we like to say in Florida, "Come on down."
-- Ernest Wm. Bach, executive director, Florida Action Coalition Team; past president/chief executive officer, Florida Silver Haired Legislature, Largo

Persecution with home delivery

Re: Arm-twisting religion fuels resistance, Bill Maxwell's May 31 column.

Maxwell wrote that Christian readers who have answered his column are mean and nasty. He said they have "the gall to try and ram their dogma down other people's throats." Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Maxwell is critical of a group of religious people and their belief in apostolicity because he doesn't agree with it. He protests that he is not persecuting Christians and that he would never knock on their doors to do that. However he is using his newspaper column to do exactly that, and it arrives at our door every morning!
-- Barbara Hungerford, Palm Harbor

Take it up with Jesus

Bill Maxwell has a bone to pick with Christianity. Many of his points are well taken -- such as racist preaching from Christian pulpits. That, among his other examples, only points out the sinfulness of man -- including myself, while being a forgiven believer who still sins daily.

However, Maxwell and the others who rail about the "exclusive claims" of Christians should direct their questions to Jesus Christ, who instituted such a position by saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life . . ." "The" as in only. Herein lies the beef -- take it up with Christ.
-- Kenn Sidorewich, Oldsmar

Race still taints judgments

As a long-time reader of Bill Maxwell's columns, I am often surprised by the hostility and rancor his columns generate. I find him to be interesting, insightful, thought provoking and extremely balanced -- no matter what the issue or those involved. If I had to pick a person in the Tampa Bay area to meet and have lunch with, he would top the list.

It is still very apparent -- even in the year 2000 -- that some of us continue to be judged by the color of our skin and not by the content of our character.
-- Steve Spina, Zephyrhills

The message isn't always welcome

Having escaped, personality intact, after wasting more than 10 years of my life in service to an oppressive, mind controlling Christian religious organization, I would agree with Bill Maxwell that mailing a Jesus video to people who did not request it could be offensive to many, as it would be to me.

After many years of "door to door" work with the Jehovah's Witnesses, I finally realized that the people upon whose doors I was knocking didn't want me there, and I no longer wished to intrude upon them either! There are many denominations of Christianity and, unfortunately, the members of each of them seem to believe they, as Christians, have a responsibility to impose their brand of the "truth" on others.

It is time for Christians in this great secular nation to learn tolerance and respect for others and to accept the fact not all of us want their message, not all of us need their message. And if we decide we do, we certainly know where to go looking for it! Meanwhile, I am a very happy and content Liberated Freelance Pagan Secular Humanist.
-- Pamela Jo Hatley, Tampa

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