Letter: Bush, GOP work to contain health care costs

Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2001 | 8:52 a.m.

In response to Liz Carrasco's Aug. 17 letter, "Democrats will fight for patients' bill of rights":

My family has been insured by HMOs for over 30 years now -- Kaiser Permanente in California and Secure Horizons here in Nevada. Those HMOs have taken care of all of our medical needs for our children, my wife and I with the highest standards possible, from broken bones to congestive heart failure and cancer.

In all those years, I have heard no talk at all about we patients needing a right to sue the HMO or needing protection of our rights, except from the politicians wanting to give the lawyers a bigger slice of the money pie.

If I were covered only by Medicare today as a senior citizen I would not be allowed to sue the insurer since the U.S. government program (Medicare) cannot be sued.

We HMO members are covered for all of our hospital stays and have co-pays for doctors visits of $10 or less and prescription coverage for $15 or less per prescription no matter what the medicine is. We have protection from mistakes through arbitration by a panel of persons selected by the member and the HMO, which works very well for those few cases brought before the panel.

I believe the Democrats are trying to put our HMOs out of business so that the government will have complete control and force one more Big Brother program down our throats just like Hillary Clinton tried to do years ago with her health plan. I like the fact that my HMO has controlled costs so that my fees have not gone higher and my medical costs are kept within my budget.

Let's hope George W. Bush will veto any plan to add more costs to the consumers the Democrats want to push through.

STEPHEN J. YARLING