Universal Healthcare

At least one country already has a healthcare plan roughly similar to the one President Obama and the Democrats have proposed, with universal coverage, a mandate that everyone buy insurance and a major role for private insurance companies: Switzerland. So I used part of a vacation last week to head for the Swiss Alps to observe the system in practice. Dr. Jean-Oscar Meile, 53, runs a tidy one-man practice in Melide, a suburb of Lugano in Switzerland's Italian-speaking south.

As the Supreme Court justices asked pointed questions about President Obama's landmark healthcare law Tuesday, and the issue was being hotly debated outside the courtroom,  letter writers to The Times  emailed their own pointed observations of the day's events. Times staff writers David Savage and Noam Levey reported   Tuesday afternoon from Washington: “It is often difficult to tell from oral arguments exactly how the justices will vote, but from their questions, the four conservatives sounded as though they had made up their minds that the mandate is unconstitutional....

Re "Massachusetts Poised to Require Health Insurance," April 5 At last -- a proposed universal healthcare plan for all, at least in Massachusetts. Aside from immigration, this is our most important issue in the U.S. I am a Democrat but support Gov. Mitt Romney's plan to relieve our citizens of expensive healthcare costs. ERIC SAUDI Altadena

Is nothing sacred? Re "Stars' prints set in cement, not stone," Dec. 29 So the owners of Grauman's Chinese Theatre think it's a jolly good idea to "broaden the range" of the theater's forecourt concrete blocks to include athletes and musicians. Such audacity. May we remind them that this theater is not a sports or rock concert venue but an icon that is truly a repository of Hollywood history and film. Check the daily throngs in the forecourt — the tourists are looking for and taking photos of film favorites, and yes, that includes the past.

Re "Sick but Insured? Think Again," Sept. 17 WellPoint's practice of denying claims based on a patient's alleged misrepresentations of preexisting conditions is infuriating in many ways, not the least of which is the rip-off of California taxpayers that results. Explaining why his company persists in dubiously rejecting claims, a Blue Shield spokesman said that otherwise "we will end up with all the high-risk people." Fortunately for individuals who are abandoned by their insurer, the state can provide assistance.

washington -- Labor leader Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, has become one of the most outspoken and unconventional proponents of healthcare changes to guarantee coverage for all while reining in costs. His pursuit of that goal has led him into unusual alliances with corporate and political leaders, including Wal-Mart Chief Executive H. Lee Scott Jr. and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, although Stern's union opposed the governor's reelection. Stern was interviewed in his Washington office.

Re "Health reform goals sharpen," Dec. 1 The Times' front page article describes a consensus forming in favor of a universal healthcare system dominated by the private health insurance industry. Yet the article clearly indicates why a government-operated, single-payer, universal healthcare program is the better way to go. The story notes that "the government will control costs and set standards of care, proposals that raise the unpopular prospect of federal regulators dictating which doctors Americans can see and what drugs they can take."

Re "Universal healthcare gains unlikely backer," May 7 This article reads like a cleverly disguised ad campaign for the drug companies and big insurers that are pushing to mandate, not provide, health insurance. I would expect The Times to give other plans, such as the single-payer proposal by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), equal coverage and present information from all sides. Why doesn't the article explore the question of why our healthcare system doesn't work in the first place?

Re "Universal healthcare's dirty little secrets," Opinion, April 5 Michael Tanner and Michael Cannon's screed against universal healthcare coverage deserves publication of a piece balancing their extreme views and cherry-picked review of "the facts." I'll restrict my criticism to their claim that "simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless," and their citation that there is "no evidence" of a relationship between lack of insurance and ill health. To the contrary, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences has determined that lack of health insurance in and of itself is responsible for 18,000 deaths per year in the U.S. The omission of this well-disseminated determination should allow readers to make their own judgments about the objectivity of the authors.

ROSEMARY McCLURE wrote an interesting article regarding Cuba ["Cuba, Suspended in Time," Jan. 15]. There is one thing, though, that I found disingenuous. Her article stated, "But Cubans also have universal healthcare and an effective education system." Perhaps I should give you the benefit of the doubt, in that you were not able to speak freely with the people of the island. I agree that they have a universal healthcare system. However, what good is a universal healthcare system if, when the doctor prescribes you a medication, it is nowhere to be found without dollars from a family in the States?

Conservatives tend to become apoplectic at the thought of the government requiring people to pay for health insurance or any form of public program designed to provide universal coverage. Yet most of those same conservatives — including Republican lawmakers — are perfectly at ease with the idea of requiring that all phone users pay a fee intended to provide universal coverage for telecom services. This disparity (or hypocrisy) was on full display as the one Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission joined his three Democratic colleagues recently in voting to overhaul a decades-old system of providing subsidies for phone service in rural areas.

Living in a poorer neighborhood might put people at greater risk for having a sudden cardiac arrest, a study finds. Researchers analyzed data on sudden cardiac arrests over one year among 9,235 people in four U.S. cities and three in Canada. They also looked at median household incomes from census tracts to determine the relationship between the arrests and socioeconomic status. In six of the seven cities, the frequency of sudden cardiac arrests was substantially greater in the lowest socioeconomic areas compared with the highest.

Thanks for the fantastic article you wrote on me ["Working Out Obesity Issues," June 27]. I will continue my quest to find a doctor who will repair my torn [anterior cruciate ligament] and remove the 40-plus pounds of skin at no cost. I am living in California now and still losing weight. Your weather is amazing! Dana C. Baker Anaheim Pay family doctors well I could have written Dr. Steve Dudley's Health section article on concierge medicine ["Select Care's High Price," June 27]

At this point, there's at least one thing you can't blame Donald Trump for: being Donald Trump. Like the scorpion in Aesop's fables who must sting the frog because that's simply what scorpions do, the world renowned, self-promoting billionaire-clown must tout himself with passion and narcissistic self-regard. It was only a matter of time, for instance, before he came out with his own fragrance: Donald Trump Cologne by Donald Trump Eau De Toilettes. (You can find it on Amazon.com.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer is playing Scrooge, admonishing Capitol politicians that they can't have everything they want -- or even think they need. It's a sound message not just for the politicians, but also for the California public. The state's credit card is about maxed out, the veteran Democratic office-holder warns. Payments on bond borrowing are becoming uncomfortably high, crowding out funds for universities, healthcare, parks -- and all the other government services being slashed these days.

Federal health officials are casting doubt on a last-gasp funding scheme by California to keep nearly 700,000 children from being yanked from its government health insurance program for the working poor. U.S. health officials say the plan adopted by the state during the final days of the legislative session in September and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may not meet regulatory muster. As a result, children's health advocates are warning that by the end of next year, hundreds of thousands of poor youngsters could lose their coverage -- even as the Obama administration continues its push for universal healthcare.

Re "Primary care or else," Opinion, Nov. 5 Why do we need doctors to be our primary-care providers? For many years now, my first request has been to see the nurse practitioner. She seems to be able to spend more time with me and is just as thorough with my physical exam as any doctors I have had. If I need the attention of a doctor, I am quickly referred. This would seem to be a better use of time and money for those with a "shoulder pain or a common rash." If Americans get universal healthcare, we will need more doctors than we can graduate.

Whatever the fallout from Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson's failed attempt to insert new abortion restrictions into the Senate's healthcare package, it appears increasingly likely that reform will be made hostage to this most divisive of issues. In the process, it also appears that America's Catholic bishops, who have supported some form of government health insurance as a fundamental right for nearly a century, are determined to transform themselves into a single-issue constituency.

Re "Primary care or else," Opinion, Nov. 5 Why do we need doctors to be our primary-care providers? For many years now, my first request has been to see the nurse practitioner. She seems to be able to spend more time with me and is just as thorough with my physical exam as any doctors I have had. If I need the attention of a doctor, I am quickly referred. This would seem to be a better use of time and money for those with a "shoulder pain or a common rash." If Americans get universal healthcare, we will need more doctors than we can graduate.