I COULDN'T RESIST WRITING THIS LETTER
It's seldom that I see two stories about health insurance rescisions in the same paper, let alone the same section. I was at a meeting about single payer last night. Everyone in the room indicated that they favored a single payer health care system--not only in California, but in the entire nation. Our people are tired of the games that the private, for-profit health care insurance companies play. The fire department, the police department, the Veterans Administration are all single-payer agencies. Would you have them all privatized, for profit and available only to people who can afford to buy their services? I doubt it. Unlike these agencies, the single payer health care system would continue to pay for the doctor, dentist, hospital or other private, for profit services that the patient uses now. The government would be the funding agency as health insurance is now. The difference is that there would be one set of rules and one payer instead of the hundreds of plans we have now. If anybody wants coverage that the single payer doesn't offer, thay could purchase additional coverage from one of the private insuranse companies.

TWO STORIES ABOUT HEALTH CARE RECISSIONS

The May 29 Business Section of the L. A. Times printed two stories regarding rescissions of payments by health care insurers.

One article reported that Blue Shield successfully rescinded coverage and payments for services billed, because the patient “failed to disclose preexisting conditions, including hypertension.”
The other article, in the same Times Business Section, reported that Health Net “agreed to pay California hospitals at least $1.95 million for care delivered to patients whom the insurer later dropped.”
These two stories are good examples of why we should have single payer medical care coverage in California. A single payer insurance program would insure every California resident regardless of prior existing medical history. S, B. 840 was such a bill, but was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger twice. It had one set of rules. All California residents would be covered. All doctors, dentists, hospitals, laboratories and other medical care providers would be paid for their services as long as they followed those rules.
That bill is back as S.B. 810 (Leno), with the prospects that the next governor will pass it. The insurance companies are fighting it vigorously. They realize that single payer will be less expensive than their insurance and hugely cut their patient base and their outrageous profits.
If it passes, California will be the first in the nation. It could lead to passage of a national single payer health care program such as S, B, 676 (Conyers).
Melvin H Kirschner, MPH, MD