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

DATE: TUESDAY, November 2, 1993                   TAG: 9311030395
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: J. RICHARD BROWN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DON'T TRUST HEALTH-CARE 'BANDITS'

I LIKEN our present health-care problem to a bridge that most of us need to cross from time to time. Restored health is on the other side of the bridge. But a group of bandits have control of the bridge, and they charge exorbitant tolls to cross it. Because it's often a matter of life and death, we have no choice but to pay.

Yet, when a hospital's profits (not volume) double every five years for 40 years, when health-care costs go up at more than three times the rate of inflation, and health-insurance soars out of reach for the average family, what do our elected officials do? Put the bandits out of business? No, they fret about who's going to pay the ransom and plead with the bandits to be reasonable.

The president and her husband are not solving the problem; they are merely trying to find a new pool of money for the bandits to pillage. By the time the medical industry has busted the business community, the Clinton will be out of office and someone else will have to deal with the bandits.

Who are the bandits? That's a hard one. Everyone is innocent; not me, is the byword. You'd sooner find a Nazi in post-war Germany than a culpable individual in the health-care scandal.

My mother-in-law's husband needed a surgical procedure, so she asked the doctor how much it would cost. He innocently replied, ``Oh, I don't know, you'd have to ask my accountant that.'' Come now, doctor, are you really asking her to believe that you let your accountant set your fees; that you're just a dedicated saver of lives and know nothing of crass money matters; and that you think the good fairy brought that Mercedes and that $350,000 house in Hunting Hills?

I'm afraid Americans cannot count on their politicians on this one. Traditionally, politicians are unable to deal with the monied class. They, like the painted ladies who work the downtown market area, tend to sell to the highest bidder. In Virginia, big medicine usually gets what it wants. Remember the Blue Cross merger and the hospital merger? Did those companies decide to merge because of a sudden surge of altruism, or to keep those profits doubling? It seems our politicians believed them when they said that eliminating competition would better serve the consumer. If that idea isn't patently absurd, then it follows that we should dump free enterprise. It would be to consumers' advantage to have only one car company, one bank, one clothing store. What do you think?

No, this time all of us are going to have to raise a real stink, a major hue and cry. We must get the attention of those who claim to serve us, who live off our votes. They must know that we the people are dead serious this time. They must be convinced that we mean business and that we won't stand for the usual dog-and-pony show. No more fast talk and sleight of hand; the bandits must get off the bridge. Either the people's will will be done, or the people will be done.

J. Richard Brown of Roanoke is owner of a local restaurant and billiards lounge.

by CNB