
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 14, 1990                   TAG: 9006140472
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

HEALTH-CARE FPENDING BASED ON EMOTION

THE COMMENTS (May 24) of Carolyn Clancy on the national health-care crisis were interesting; the conclusions, false.

We spend more on health care primarily because we spend emotionally and in response to government demands and special-interest pressures, not rationally.

She is correct that cost-containment measures have resulted in an avalanche of paper work, more control and more marked intrusion into doctor-patient relationships by government and insurers.

To say that national health (socialized medicine) programs would reduce costs is a sick joke. If it is so great, why are the British reversing it? Why are the Swedes going broke? Nor can we compare it in any way to Canada, which has a more disciplined, less fragmented and much less litigious society, not to mention one-tenth the population.

Name one government program not fostering a large, rapidly growing, expensive bureaucracy with reams of unjustifiable paper work, the brunt of which is foisted onto those (physicians) who are already overwhelmed by government mandates and fiats. Where is time for patients?

Access to adequate health care is a noble ideal; government programs are not noble enough to deal with it.

GEOFFREY W. CURWEN, M.D.\ FIELDALE

by CNB