By Inaccuracies about Bush
Your July 24th editorial on “Corporate Greed” was inaccurate on two counts while attempting to include President Bush in the list of suspected wrongdoers.
First, the company in which Bush sold stock did NOT go belly up shortly thereafter, and in fact its stock doubled in value over the eight to ten months following the President’s sale. Secondly, the SEC has long ago investigated the transactions (which occurred over 10 years ago) and found no basis for any action against the President.
Please check your facts more carefully before printing them to avoid making critical comments about people unjustly.
Gordon PilcherMountain View
Backing those ‘militant’ neighbors
The July 19 article on the Rosita pool project quotes Kathy Englar of SPLASH noting “30-plus very militant Rosita neighbors who oppose this project. However, among the almost 30,000 citizens of Los Altos, there are thousands who equally passionately support the project.”
I think Kathy raises some interesting questions on numbers:
How many of the 30,000 support those 30 militants? I do!
How many tennis players are disappointed in the loss of the Rosita courts? I can name 20.
How many of you have ever driven down Rosita? Try it, and ask yourself if you want your kids to walk to school with all that traffic for the pool.
How many would want this oversized pool project at the end of your street?
I support those 30 militants on Rosita. I hope others will speak up as well. How about a vote?
Bob MooreLos Altos
Little paperwork for this doctor
I read with not a little interest Dr. Lawrence Epstein’s “Other Voices” piece, “A Doctor’s Dilemma” (June 26, 2002).
I, too, am a specialist in internal medicine, although I have only been in practice for 17 years, the last 12 with The Permanente Medical Group in Mountain View. We take care of all of Kaiser Permanente’s patients in this area.
My experiences as an internist with Kaiser Permanente are very different from Dr. Epstein’s.
I, too, am working harder these days taking care of a large practice of patients. My challenges are mostly related to an aging population in an era where there are so many ways to diagnose problems and treat them with many options which my patients will read about on the Internet even before I do. However, I have practically no paperwork to fill out, nor do I have to deal with any insurance bureaucrats. I never have to ask permission of any third party to treat my patients, refer them to specialists, or order a test. I can prescribe the drugs which I feel are most appropriate, even when they are not in the Kaiser formulary. Only I, in conjunction with my patients, make these decisions.
Most importantly, Kaiser Permanente’s advanced information technology has helped me to provide excellent care for my patients. These systems track how my patients are doing in preventive health issues, and remind me to reach out to patients who need more focused care. Our comprehensive programs for the management of chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes, or coronary heart disease help me as an internist to continually deliver state-of-the-art care for my patients in a way I know I could not do in private practice without that superb support. We have electronic prescriptions and consult referrals that truly have streamlined these work processes and eliminated a lot of paper waste, not to mention the frequent and frustrating loss of paperwork due to human error.
While I, too, agree that the “rich doctor” is a myth, I feel my income has been very satisfactory as a direct result of my association with such a stable organization as Kaiser Permanente. Most importantly, however, as a member of The Permanente Medical Group, I never have to choose between adhering to the humanitarian ethos that underpins our profession, and the more mundane, but relevant, question of making a living.
Dr. Sandy ChunMountain View Internal Medicine Department
Why not health coverage for everyone?
Whine? Marvin, what are you thinking of (Letters, July 3)?One of the biggest problems with health finance reform is the demand for solutions, plural, when there is only one solution: the services of government as broker - everybody pays, everybody gets seen.
When FDR improved on classic social insurance by leaving out the health insurance, the young physicians paid the price by caring for all the people whose rainy day money was taken away as payroll tax; they have to do it or not be permitted to send their patients to the hospital.
It’s very common for residents in surgical specialties to work 120 hours a week. When pressed to limit the M.D. work week to 80 hours for the sake of the patients, the state Legislature decided that giving up the free labor would be too costly for the county hospitals which are subsidized by the state. By the time the young physicians become free agents, they are way behind the housing cost curve and struggling to catch up. We tax their earned income by nearly a third more than capital gains.
To top it off, Congress has made doctors and nurses subject to the draft, regardless of gender, until age 35. Now you’re saying that it’s their obligation to do what the most astute politicians can’t do? Pete Stark, Jim McDermott, Conyers - they’re hardly dummies, but they can’t get the rest of Congress to understand that it is really stupid to let private insurance companies insure all the healthy people with good jobs while taxpayers insure the old, sick and disabled.
Dr. Epstein is doing a service in pointing out that our government’s handing a health finance monopoly to private insurers has not been good for physicians.
Stephanie Munoz
Los Altos Hills
