SPN Media Alert: NY Times Letters to Editor re Healthcare (good ones)

Begin forwarded message:

From: arthur persyko <artpersyko@gmail.com>

Date: June 10, 2011 8:16:15 AM PDT

Subject: SPN Media Alert:  NY Times Letters to the Editor on "models of healthcare"; "Americans Love Medicare" (Idaho Mountain Express, 6/10/11);  Any good health reform articles this past week?;  and today, at 10 am, KALW 91.7 fm "Your Call" media roundtable

SPN Media Alert:  Good morning!  Today there are some good NY Times Letters to the Editor on "models of healthcare"; an opinion piece called "Americans Love Medicare" which identifies it as an across the boards popular example of single payer (Idaho Mountain Express, 6/10/11);  Did you notice any good relevant health reform articles this past week?  (If so, please send them to this group;  I've been away for a few days and would love to see any you think worthy of our attention);  and today, from 10 to 11 am, KALW 91.7 fm's "Your Call" media roundtable.  If you saw or heard any good health care reform news, you can call or email that show.   You can call in and/or email in your comments and/or questions at:  866-798-TALK (Toll-Free), feedback@yourcallradio.org.  Thanks!  (P.S. Don't forget there is an important rally on June 16 against AHIP, the Health Insurance Industry, when their national convention comes to town next week. SPN and other groups will be there.  Hope you will be, too!  Let's make some news of our own!!)  -Art

1)  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR OF THE NY TIMES:

Looking at the Models for Health Care

Published: June 9, 2011

(from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/opinion/l10brooks.html?ref=todayspaper)

To the Editor:

In "Where Wisdom Lives" (column, June 7), David Brooks suggests that the choice between free-market and "top down" health care is a philosophical one, and that a centralized solution is unlikely to succeed. I disagree.

To see the failure of free-market health care, just look at our Southern red states, where access is limited and obesity and cardiovascular disease are rampant.

In contrast, several "top down" models — Canada and France, notably — have faults, but provide wider access, better outcomes and lower cost.

More pertinent is a model within our borders. The Veterans Affairs Department serves more than five million patients and serves them well. Indeed, a study published on June 7 in The Annals of Internal Medicine reports that V.A. cancer care is as good as or better than in the private sector.

Like all systems, the V.A. is imperfect, but it belies Mr. Brooks's assumption that we can't come together to care for one another, and do it both well and efficiently.

MICHAEL PILLINGER
New York, June 7, 2011

The writer is section chief of rheumatology, New York Harbor Health Care System, New York campus, Department of Veterans Affairs.

To the Editor:

David Brooks summarizes the Republican Medicare plan as follows: "Replacing the fee-for-service with a premium support system. Seniors would select from a menu of insurance plans. Their consumer choices would drive a continual, bottom-up process of innovation."

That sure sounds a lot like the company-supported health care plans that most major corporations offer these days. And all we have received from this approach is a continual process of rising employee payments, rapidly diminishing benefits and record-breaking health insurance company profits.

No wonder many of us are so skeptical of the Republican plan.

MARK FURMAN
Morristown, N.J., June 7, 2011

To the Editor:

David Brooks is sure that the "15 Washington-based experts" charged with saving Medicare will fail. He may be right. But somehow most every other industrialized nation manages to provide universal medical care at half the per-capita cost of the United States and often provides better results.

Now I know that it is 100 percent un-American to suggest that we can learn anything from foreigners: think of what happened when a Supreme Court opinion dared to mention foreign law in one of its decisions. So perhaps we could secretly see how other countries do it and just never admit that we learned anything. Maybe that should be the new American way.

FRED E. HAHN
Golden Valley, Minn., June 7, 2011

2)  "Americans Love Medicare" a "...single payer medical plan for Americans 65 and older..." (Idaho Mountain Express,Friday, June 10, http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005137008)

excerpt:

As a critical part of the "Great Society" in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the bill that established Medicare, a single-payer medical plan for Americans 65 and older. It was designed to bring much-needed medical services to our older citizens who, with Medicare, are now living longer, and not just longer but healthier and more vibrant lives.

Americans love Medicare. Democrats love Medicare. Rank-and-file Republicans are split evenly between loving and hating it. Even tea party members love Medicare, carrying signs reading, "Keep your socialist hands off my Medicare.";  and