Letters to the Editor: Public Square Cleared Health Care Confusion

Public Square Cleared Health Care Confusion
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Thank you,

Times-Dispatch, for the Public Square on the health care debate. Having two congressmen together who represent different viewpoints allowed attendees to hear firsthand the contrasts that exist on this issue.

During their presentations, it became clear that the solution to controlling health care costs is to encourage more competition in the health insurance industry. Suppose other industries, such as retail, conducted business in an environment as health insurance does now. Companies could not operate and sell their products across state lines. Companies with stores located in North Carolina could operate and sell their products only within North Carolina; those in Virginia could operate only within Virginia, and so on.

Each state would have different requirements mandating what stores could or could not sell and at what price they could sell them. In addition there would be federal mandates. Most products would first be sold to an intermediary. Customers could not buy directly from the store.

If these limits to competition existed in the grocery industry your weekly grocery bill would be much higher and product selection more limited than it is now. But grocery companies conduct business free from such constraints. To gain customers, they must compete by offering better product selection at competitive prices. The result is that groceries cost the same or less as a percentage of income than in years past.

The best way to control prices is a healthy free market, free of government restraints. This applies to all industries, even health insurance. Barriers restricting competition in this industry must come down. Allow companies to operate across state lines; remove competition-killing, cost-increasing mandates; and create incentives that encourage companies to sell directly to the individual. Increased competition would result, leading to more affordable health care coverage.

Ed Hechler.
Mechanicsville.

Less than 2 percent of the total cost of health care in the U.S. is related to malpractice. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2004 that "even a reduction of 25 percent to 30 percent of costs would lower health care costs by only about 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent, and the likely effect on health insurance premiums would be comparably small."

The CBO reported that "some so-called defensive medicine may be motivated less by liability concerns than by income it generates for physicians or by the positive (albeit small) benefits to patients . . . .CBO believes that savings from reducing defensive medicine would be very small."

Despite malpractice caps (limits on damage awards) in at least 32 states, and restrictions in at least 40, malpractice insurance rates have continued to climb. Caps and restrictions have not been shown to limit health care costs in any meaningful way.

Based on historical patterns, when insurance companies suffer loss of investment income (such as when interest rates fall) or suffer catastrophic cyclical losses in other lines (e.g., Katrina flood), they raise malpractice insurance rates.

I suggest further restriction of malpractice liability laws offered by Republicans is merely a decoy to make it appear they want health insurance reform.

Republicans have stated repeated opposition to all of the health insurance reform bills pending in Congress. I ask your readers to consider if they are simply trying to curry the favor of the medical establishment and insurance companies while blowing a smokescreen.

Edward Taylor.
Midlothian.

You need to put this so-called disrespect to rest. Cantor's explanation is good enough for me. He probably wasn't the only member using a cell phone to write, Twitter, or whatever else people do. And, you know what? A few Democrats probably used their phones, too.

Joseph N. Cupurdija.
Mechanicsville.

Your editorial, "A Place to Start," is indeed welcome news for some of our public schools. I was sorry to read, however, your caution, "No one expects schools -- public, private, or in the home -- to produce students universally qualified for admission to Princeton, Stanford, or the military academies." How sad, not to set high goals for all our children!

Some of us accepted as our mark the Williams College motto, "Climb high; climb far, your aim the sky, your goal a star." Couldn't that be a motto for all our students?

William Egelhoff.
Richmond.