New Brunswick Telegraph Journal
Published Tuesday October 7th, 2008

Treatments in U.S. aren't always easy

It's unfortunate Brent Skinner chose to devote most of his commentary "Wanted: new models of care for universal health care" telling us how much better our health-care system would be if we spent as much money on it as the Americans. He provided only scant details on the Dutch and Swiss systems.

Contrary to Mr. Skinner's belief, access to necessary treatments for Americans is not as easy as he makes it out to be. In the U.S.A., health care is a commodity to be bought and sold. At best, it must be managed, always looking out for the bottom line, really no different than Canada, minus the corporate profits. At worst, HMOs hire employees whose role is to find loopholes so coverage can be denied.

While living there for a short time, we paid dearly for what we believed would be a good health insurance plan. My family could never see a physician when we needed to. When we managed to get past the gatekeeper, we never saw the same doctor. I was prescribed the wrong medication to treat a serious illness just because it was less expensive. This is hardly the premium health care Mr. Skinner describes in his article.

Quality health care is not just about the amount of money that is spent and it is possible that the Dutch and Swiss have some good ideas for us on how to improve our system. I wish the author used his allotted space to tell us.

LINDA WILHELM
Midland, Kings Co.