The New York Times
December 9, 2001
Opinion
Excerpts from letters in response to the article, “A New Health Plan May Raise Expenses for Sickest Workers” (New York Times, Dec. 5):
JOHN GLASEL, Secretary, Health Care for All, New Jersey:
“Most other advanced countries have universal health systems financed by more equitable taxation. We need the same here, to end the worsening health care apartheid that belies our American traditions of freedom and equality.”
SHEILA FEIT, M.D., Syosset, N.Y.:
“A description of a user of this plan says it best: ‘He used most of his health savings account this year, but does not expect to do so next year.'”
“Who does? When will we learn?”
SUSAN SCHEER, Executive Director, Center for Independence of the Disabled in New York:
“What a concept – medical insurance that only covers the needs of healthy people and discourages people with disabilities and their family members from pursuing healthy and independent lives (and jobs)!”
ROBERT JAFFE, Deputy Director of the New York affiliate of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League:
“It would be unfortunate, and financially foolhardy, for employers and health insurers to embrace a plan that makes families defer going to the doctor for basic primary care because they are trying to hold down their out-of-pocket expenditures.”
RONALD A. WILLIAMS, Executive Vice President, Aetna:
“‘A New Health Plan May Raise Expenses for Sickest Workers’ (front page, Dec. 5) did not mention that consumers are demanding more choice and flexibility in how they use their health benefits.”
“Those who do not find that the product meets their needs can select a more appropriate plan design.”
Comment: Quoting from the original article, “Pressed by employers, some of the nation’s biggest insurers are introducing a new kind of health plan… ” and “Eventually, however, consultants expect many employers to offer only the new type of plan.”
Aetna and the other insurers must cater to their customers, the employers that purchase their plans. It is disconcerting to see the EVP of Aetna using dishonest rhetoric to placate the patient-consumers who are being shafted by these innovative insurance products. This detrimental co-conspiracy of the employers and the insurers has established clearly the fact that they have abandoned their ethical obligation to assure that patients will always have access to health care whenever needed. It is time to dismiss them and establish a public process that will assure that our abundant health care resources will be distributed equitably based on patient needs.