1942

The morning after President Clinton outlined the principles guiding his proposed restructuring of our present health-care system, I sent post cards to eight of our medical ’42s requesting any “pithy thoughts” they might have on the subject before my October 15 deadline for this column. I then discovered that, for family reasons, Betty and I had to leave town a week before that deadline, to visit a sick relative in North Carolina, so that, in effect, deadline was moved forward! Since the only the response received so far is one from Hugh Halsey, I suggest that you brace yourselves for the results of a “sample of ONE.” Should other replies arrive later, I promise to report them in the next DAM. Hugh, who in 1962 estab- lished a successful ob-gyn group practice, notes that any changes in medical practice ini- tiated by the Clinton plan will not necessar- ily affect his practice since he retired “fully” last July. He continues, “I do think that in the last 10 or 12 years health costs have skyrock- eted. (I might say the same about college costs. Our tuition was $450-475 and level over the fouryears, and my total expenses were under $1,500 each year.) I think that hospi- tal charges, drug prices, and doctors’ fees are outrageous. A big factor is the third-party payer, though. Insurance companies will pay as much as is charged as long as they can raise their premiums. Now the premiums are out- rageous, and employers can’t afford to pay them for employees, and there are many who have no insurance. So I think everybody should be insured, and since the third-party payers are not very responsible, some regulations will be necessary. It may be that additional taxation will be necessary, but I would rather see money going for health care and preven- tive medicine than for Triton submarines and stealth bombers.”

Stop the presses! An Express Mail eagle has just delievered this timely “second opinion” from pediatric surgeon Tom Moore in Cal- ifornia; “It was an important start, and the inclusion of everyone in the health-care sys- tem was an important first step. This inclu- sion of everyone (citizens and aliens) approx- imates the English national health system which is more efficient, less fraudulent and wasteful, and much less costly than ours (six percent of GNP vs. 14 percent for us). A sin- gle-payer system like the English and Cana- dian will by-pass the insurance mess; no mal- practice payments will save huge amounts; fixed incomes for doctors, hospitals, proce- dures, etc. will bring the financial hemor- rhage under much better control than the pre- sent disaster and disgrace. President Clinton and First Lady Clinton are to be congratu- lated and applauded on making a real start— that is the most important part of all of this.

II hope the foregoing stimulates addition- al opinions on any side of this critical issue.

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