Letters to the Editor November 20, 2009

After reading the Thursday article, “Sparks fly over harbor health care,” I was amazed at the arrogance displayed by one of the harbor commissioners regarding his sense of entitlement to health care benefits.

Jack Reese was quoted as saying “we should get the same benefits as all other staff.” What an insult to the hard-working staff at the Harbor District.

The commissioners are not full-time employees. The commissioners at best work part time. As such they are not entitled to the same benefits as full-time employees.

Mr. Reese, if you want full benefits, get a full-time job. Pretty simple. There are hundreds if not thousands of full-time employees in Del Norte county working to make ends meet who are not able to afford the quality of health care insurance you receive for your part-time work.

For reference, I served on the Crescent Fire Protection Board of Directors from 1998 through 2006 and never received a penny in remuneration. And, yes, it was an elected position.

Hopefully your medical insurance is adequate as it looks like you may have bumped your head.

Stupak Amemdment to otherwise good reform should not pass

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and fellow conservatives snuck an anti-choice amendment into the House health care bill and it must not be permitted to ride along unchallenged.

Neither should we let it stall health care reform, as some would hope to do.

The Stupak Amendment makes insurance coverage for abortion virtually unavailable for women purchasing insurance plans through the newly created health care exchange even if they are using their own money to purchase the coverage! 

My congressman and senators are going to hear from me and thousands of others. As Sen. Gillibrand put it, this huge shift in U.S. policy “would dramatically limit reproductive health care.”  Since abortion is already a legal medical procedure, the conservatives are trying to legislate reproductive rights, riding on the tail of much needed health care reform for the millions who have either been ignored or have been dealt with so unjustly.

This discriminatory Stupak exception to coverage in a bill designed to offer universal affordable coverage is unconscionable and out of place.

Reject and remove the Stupak Amendment and let the desperately needed health care bill proceed with its intended function and purpose!

Let Stupak, et al, choose another day and forum for their battle if they must.

Pass health care reform now.

Good doctors make you wait — they’re taking time with patients

After reading Dear Abby’s column on Nov. 12 concerning waiting time in doctor’s offices, I just had to respond.

I spent almost 10 years working in a county lab that had five clinics in the same building. I became close friends with all the providers who were employed there. I learned to sympathize with both the physicians and patients as well.

Physicians are not allowed the privilege of working an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule. That’s a luxury they can’t afford.

As stated in the column, doctors constantly have to deal with emergencies and patients who have extreme medical problems, thereby requiring more time.

All this and they still have to contend with hospital rounds and constantly being double- and triple-booked.

During my time with the county, I learned that once health maintenance organizations (HMOs), were brought  into the picture, things changed drastically.

Physicians were then being pressured to time their visits with patients. The more patients they saw, the more money HMOs made.

I have never once seen physicians be able to work their so-called schedules and be able to leave on time.

Patients need to consider it a blessing if their provider is caring enough to spend the allotted time with them, and a double blessing if your doctor ignores the HMOs’ pressure and chooses instead to see each patient for as long as needed.