Letters to the Editor: AMA Is Committed To Achieving Reform

AMA Is Committed To Achieving Reform
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Regarding the Op/Ed column by Dr. John O'Shea, "Physicians Want Serious Health Care Reform": The relationship between a patient and physician is at the heart of health care -- and the American Medical Association is working to make sure it stays that way. No insurer, whether it is the government or a private payer, should interfere in medical decisions between a patient and physician.

Dedicated physicians are working hard to provide high-quality care in a broken system, and the AMA believes we can improve the system for patients and physicians. House bill H.R. 3200 is an important first step in the legislative process. It curbs insurance industry practices, such as denials based on pre-existing conditions, that frustrate patients and physicians -- and most importantly it expands coverage through a choice of plans. It also eliminates the flawed Medicare physician payment formula that will harm seniors' access to care. We are encouraged that a House committee added medical liability reform to the bill, which is needed to reduce unnecessary costs to the health system.

There is still more work to be done after Congress' August recess. The AMA is committed to achieving reform that makes our current system work better for patients and the physicians who care for them. J. James Rohack, M.D., President, American Medical Association.


Chicago, IL.

Reopening the Tech Investigation Helps All
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Michael Pohle, whose son Michael was killed in the Virginia Tech shooting, hit the nail on the head when he said that the Tech investigation should be re-opened. According to Pohle, this would go further toward changing behavior -- presumably to prevent violence and, perhaps more important, a cosmetic closure to the tragedy that we must all move beyond.

We should reopen the investigation to learn how and why kids like Seung-Hui Cho grow in our learning culture. Cho was the product of many years of silent negative messages and passing grades. What was he even doing at Tech? Who wrote letters on his behalf? Don't college applicants need to demonstrate they are well rounded and be able to write terrific application essays? Was there an admissions interview? Where are the notes? Or was he accepted sight unseen?

Many students are routinely profiled, marginalized, and avoided by the larger culture because of race or even learning differences. Asian students like Cho, whom we fit into the mold of quiet and studious, are no exception. If Cho had been treated as a human being instead of an invisible misfit, he might not have been desperate for the horrible recognition he finally received. He was given his grades, and that's all that mattered to his schools and teachers -- until he began his final run where even the complaints and concerns of his professors were all but ignored.

This constitutes a culture of coverup -- a form of anti-social behavior equal in force to Cho's explosion. It was a state of denial that chose not to respond to the invisible and emergent reality of Cho's anger, bullying, and deeper emotions that exploded on April, 16, 2007. The missing folder is just another item in piles of records that grow daily in schools everywhere. This social cancer will continue to erupt in a learning culture that cares more about protecting itself than coming to terms with its own failings.

Jeffrey L. Peyton.
Richmond.

At the end of World War II, I returned briefly to Vienna, Austria, from where I had fled the Nazis in 1938.

I found a city in shambles: venerable buildings reduced to dust, streets covered with rubble waist high, and needy, hungry people everywhere.

Fifty years later I returned again. This time I found a solid metropolis humming with life and prosperity. But far more than the city's beauty and glittering shops, I was awed by the comprehensive health insurance that covered every man, woman, and child in the land.

"How can this be?" I asked a friend. "You lost the war. You were bombed to the ground. You had nothing."

"That's it," he replied, "We had nothing. We had to start from scratch, from the bottom up. And we had to make sure we did it right. And that's how it all came about."

May it all come about in this country before long. Health insurance for every man, woman, and child.

Frances Nunnally.
Richmond.