THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
``Health care doesn't need managing; health compromise does'' (Another View, Feb. 20) has affirmed my belief that autonomous care is the choice for me and most, if not all, Americans who deserve both autonomy and lower cost in health care.
Autonomous care advocates patient-directed and -shared risk and promotes voluntary conservation of health-care resources and expenses without sacrificing necessary quality care.
Soaring health-care costs plague the system that boasts the finest care in the world. The problem of high cost gives health-maintenance organizations/managed care organizations the opportunity to take credit for cost containment as they profit by limiting or denying proper care to patients and by exploiting health-care professionals.
Every player in the health-care system has contributed to today's chaos: Unfair tax laws have been favoring employer-sponsored health insurance and discouraging both the self-employed and the nonemployed from obtaining insurances; the third-party-payer mentality insulates the public from the direct concern for skyrocketing health-care costs and allows insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical suppliers and some doctors to defraud the public; worst of all, Americans have laid back in their social safety net for decades and have lost their freedoms without a fight.
Runaway health-care costs disturb all Americans. But the loss of quality care and freedom of choice should worry them even more. Health and life are priceless and must come before the concerns of corporate profit and executive compensation. Only the patient, or his kin, is truly qualified to decide if he should give up his health and life for the cost. Without freedom of choice, quality health care and life-saving procedures would be dispensed at the whims of others.
Americans beware: Don't pay managed care to deny you your health and life!
WILLIAM T. SHINN
Suffolk, March 27, 1996 by CNB