THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 4, 1995 TAG: 9510040006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 33 lines
Scream now if you are an eligible member of Medicare or Medicaid! Newt and Co. are laying the groundwork to nuke your health-care programs.
How can the math make sense? How to take $270 billion out of the programs in the next seven years and increase the per-person payment about $2,000 by the year 2002? Options for the older population makes the medicine go down better. Medical savings accounts could work for the healthy, unmarried younger population. Will it work with a group of people 65 to 85 with the inevitable ailments old age brings?
Private companies always have to respond to the bottom line of costs. Would they insure this group and go out of business? What HMO would open its rolls to include this already helpless group? Who do we think will do the shopping for a good cheaper insurance deal for them? The private companies have to ``cherry pick'' their customers to stay solvent.
Even at present with the system intact, move into a new area and start calling to find doctors who will take new Medicare patients.
Scream now, to your senators and congressmen before the damage-control groups save your Medicare plans by destroying them!
JASON LESTER ATKINS
Virginia Beach, Sept. 26, 1995 by CNB