Don't Be Fooled by HMO Scare Tactics

Letters to the Editor:

Standing With Dr. Dean: Write Your Letter Now!

The Tucson Citizen April 9, 2009

Don't be fooled by HMO scare tactics

Barack Obama's health care plan gives Americans a choice between the for-profit private plan they may already have and a public plan like Medicare.

Many Americans, who have served in the military or work for the federal or state governments, already are covered under public plans that permit choice of doctors.

Insurance companies and HMOs employ high-paid lobbyists to erase any public option in the legislation before Congress before Obama's plan even comes to a vote.

They are willing to spend vast sums to keep the profits that reward their CEOs, inflate health care costs, and blacklist Americans with pre-existing conditions from the ability to buy insurance.

In America, 1 in 6 citizens is uninsured. Millions more discover they are underinsured after they suffer an accident or catastrophic illness.

These companies conceal the profit motive and spread misconceptions that scare Americans into thinking government interference will limit freedom of choice.

For far too long HMOs have saved money so they could pad their profits by insuring only the perfectly healthy and excluding the rest. Don't fall for scare tactics.

Any legislation that cuts out the public option is not reform. The only way to reform the system and cut waste is to give Americans a choice between a private plan and a public option that will guarantee health care.

Sandra Spangler

Americans must insist on health care reform

I have not had health insurance since I was downsized about 10 years ago. I was able to continue coverage through COBRA for 18 months, but the cost was exorbitant.

Since then, I have been self-employed, and I have tried to find private health insurance for me and my family, but we are either turned down or it is unaffordable.

If one of us becomes seriously ill or has an accident, I guess we would have to sign over our house to the hospital or declare bankruptcy, like thousands of others all over the country.

America is the only industrialized democracy in which the citizens have failed to demand health care as a basic right.

If Obama's health care plan does not include a public option like Medicare, millions of people will continue to be without insurance and living on borrowed time. We must insist on real reform.

Cheryl Kohler

1 in 6 uninsured leaves no compromise room

There is no room for a "compromise" that will mandate every American gets health care only if insurance companies rein in costs a certain percentage within some uncertain timetable.

Insurance companies will just try to manipulate the numbers and do the bare minimum to meet the requirements. More of the same. It's not reform unless every American is insured. It's just more of the same.

We voted for change, not a continuation of this horrible situation which has left 1 in 6 Americans without insurance.

John Lucas

Phoenix