Letter: Government ruins health care

Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2002 | 9:01 a.m.

I strongly disagree with your Nov. 24 editorial on health care reform. President Clinton's (i.e., Hillary's) plan for universal health insurance coverage could not have been more ill-conceived. The government cannot pay for the health care that is now being provided for the elderly, disabled and the indigent. Forty-one million Americans are "uninsured" because it is too expensive to buy insurance, and insurance is too expensive because of government intervention and regulation.

Most businesses now cover only 50 percent of the premiums of health insurance for their employees. Seniors are beginning to find it difficult to find physicians who are willing to take Medicare assignment, which has now dropped another 4.6 percent due to the inaction of Congress. The "bold" step to universal health care recommended by the "scientific" panel will drive the country further into a medical crisis.

Take away the costs of poorly conceived bureaucratic government intervention, let the patients control their own health care funding and you will see stability return to the health care marketplace.

Thirty years of escalating government intervention into health care is directly related to the escalating costs of health care. The National Academy of Science should put their "box" away and start thinking outside of it.

ROBERT W. SHRECK

Editor's note: The writer is a medical doctor in Las Vegas.