March 2000 • Volume 6 • Number 3
Readers respond to presidential contender story
To the editor:
An article in your January issue ("Access to Health Care: It's One Hot Potato for Presidential Contenders") has Robert Reischauer saying, "The country has no shortage of health care resources" -- this is doubtful -- "but they are poorly distributed. Redistribution will mean taking away some resources currently enjoyed by one sector of the population for another."
This idea of declaring that some individuals have too much and forming a system in which people are only permitted to have according to their perceived needs was not successful when tried in the 20th century. It is known as communism.
In addition, the article improperly assumes that those without health insurance have no access to health care. The article also omits that many of the uninsured have chosen to go without health insurance because they prefer to spend the money on other things. Instead of discussing the uninsured, we should discuss those truly without access to health care, and this number is fractional by comparison.
Further socializing our already over-socialized medical system will not resolve this issue.
Bryan Jefferies,
fourth-year medical student,
IndianapolisTo the editor:
In the recent FP Report, you address the issue of the uninsured. While I read about lots of solutions, I never read about the obvious. I practiced in Canada before socialism, and we employed a very simple device to treat the uninsured or underinsured.
The device was charity. It is not a dirty word. It ennobles both giver and receiver. The uncollected fees from this charity work were deductible from our ordinary income, which provided some incentive to continue the care at a fraction of the cost of government programs.
Calvin Ennis, M.D.
Pascagoula, Miss.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2000 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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