P.O. Box 240 Ojai, Calif. iigiiletter 93024--0240 May 1994 V01. I3 NO. 5 Mail Bag Mary and her husband are Americans living in England Enclosed is a check for copies sent to Washington politicos. I’d like all Red Rodney’s friends to know that he departed As you can see, one of them replied. peacefully and free of pain. My biggest fear, after leaming about It was an outstanding service you did. his lung cancer last September, was that he’d suffer. Thank God he Bernard Brightmari, Stash Records, New York City was properly medicated at the end. There was a memorial service on Simday, May 19, in Delray The letter of reply was from President Clinton Beach. It was a lovely observance and the chapel was standing room only. Red’s son, Jeff, who was such a great help to Red and Your fi'iend Bill Feindel sent me a copy of your superb 'lene during their illnesses, spoke to the assemblage about his Jazzletter for February/March. I have rarely read a paper as rather with great respect and love. powerful and poignant. It left me seething with anger that the A few months ago Red asked me to deliver his eulogy. I feel “insurance principle” is being dragged through the mud by especially honored to have been chosen and I spoke my thoughts insurance companies, in fact negated by them. with truth, affection, and the hurt that comes with losing a long- Another outpouring of adrenaline comes over me as I read the time, valued friend. Olympian, crass remarks and attitude of a few products of our Mort Fega, Delray Beach, Florida medical schools — these inhabitants of the current human jungle. When they paid tuition fees at medical school, they paid about one PS: Your health-care stuff was outstanding! Bravo! tenth or less of the actual cost of their medical education, whether at a private or public university. They are, as my Australian My compliments for your issue on the Canadian health care medical students used to say, “a bleedin’ disgrice”. Admission system. As you know, Senator Wellstone of Minnesota is one of conunittees must weed them out, by one simple question at their the authors of the single payer bill. As groups of physicians begin interviews: “What would you consider to be the optimal way of to realize that they would have more independence under single practicing medicine?” payer than they would under the Clinton plan, we’re going to see I am enclosing a copy of my recent letter to the American an increasing interest in the single payer plan on the part of those College of Surgeons. One thing that has to be made clear to our who in the past strongly opposed it. I have added your article to American neighbors: The Canadian system is not free as Bush et my reading list for my course on health-care reform. al love to whine about. We pay for it in our provincial and I must say I was initially surprised to see the article, but I’m national income taxes. You do not have to pay income tax in order glly pleased that you did publish it. It certainly wasn’t evident to qualify. It is universal in coverage in any part of Canada. '~ at your areas of scholarly focus have not previously included William C. Gibson, MD, FRCP, Victoria BC Canada health care. ' Again, my compliments for the beautifully done Canadian FRCP standsfor Fellow ofthe Royal College ofPhysicians. Dr: article. Gibson is also afellow ofthe American College ofPhysicians. He Lester E. Block, DDS, MPH studied at the Montreal Neurological Institute under the great Director of Graduate Studies in Public Health Wilder Penfield. As you will seefrom his letter to the President of University of Minnesota, Minneapolis the American College ofSurgeons in Chicago, he has afew other credentials. The letter is reprinted below I am delighted that you pursue topics which go beyond jazz narrowly defined. The discussions of race in music and of health Dear President: care were stimulating, and right on. I hope you continue to write Having studied at the Faculty of Commerce at the University of about such subjects. British Columbia before studying medicine at McGill and at Michael Michie Oxford, I am aware of the “insurance principle”. I am aware, also, Department of Political Science of the dailyviolation of this basic and simple principle by vendors York University, Toronto of alleged health insurance today. As a physician I resent the interposition of a profit-based My husband suffered a heart attack in 1980 while traveling in industry between sick people and their medical attendants. Such Canada and was treated in St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. He intervenors add nothing to our care of randomly sick taxpayers, but would have died but for the excellent treatment he received. We operate a narrow-gate, systematic parasitic scheme which today are forever indebted to the Canadian Medicare system. adds 14 percent to the cost of medical care for those selected Mary Schwartz, London, England patients who are permitted to purchase it. Ailing citizens must pass muster with a profit-making combine that. in effect, dictates what to see the misinformation about the Canadian health plan set medicine shall be practiced and, in the future, what patients will be straight. allowed to see what doctor. It’s a shame that the single-payer system has received so little As a citizen of an allegedly bereft country, medically speaking, attention here. Unfortunately, so many would rather pay premiums l wonder if I might suggest that your College of Surgeons give up than equivalent or lesser amounts in taxes. So many apparently the use of the term “single payer system” and substitute for it “the prefer insurance bureaucracies to govemment bureaucracy. Don’t American non-profit system” of health care. Anything which they know that insurers’ administrative costs run about 25 percent suggests that there is a “payer” of any kind causes the public’s while our present single-payer plan operates with administrative adrenaline to flow. The public needs reassurance, now, that no one costs under four percent? is going to profit from introducing a patient to a doctor. Ever since Bill Falconer, Pittsboro, North Carolina medicine became a science, patients have sought out physicians without the need of entrepreneurs whose battle cry is “We can get Afier meeting a senior editor at one ofthe major news organi- it for you wholesale” — i.e., at their price. So the all-important zations, Steve Allen sent him a copy of the FebruarylMarch trust between a patient and a freely-chosen practitioner is vitiated, Jazzletter: Since his letter to Steve is a private one, I am not g '""1' and stamped on. to reveal the mans name or position. But its an important ow The term l propose would have a cutting edge to it — to cut right through the smoke screen now obfuscating the health Dear Mr. Allen: equation. I suggest a term that squares with the facts, i.e. a non- It was a pleasure to meet you . And thanks for the profit care system. Compromised critics will scream to high heaven Jazzletter. I happen to be a single payer man myself, although it’s because the real truth is out. not my area. (Our organization) has run a few —— not enough — In Canada, every doctor’s income . from looking after pieces supporting the Canadian system. The problem is that the patients in our universal scheme is published annually, and there Clintons don’t think it will fly politically. And the lobbies are are no surprises or backstabbing. The graduated income tax takes buying Congress on the issue, as you know. care of the national interest. Other income is no one else’s Thanks for passing Lees’ stuff along. Best, , business. There are no bad debts. Patients choose their own Name WllhhCld doctors. Money is never discussed. The overhead costs are less than two percent. I had long known that the insurance lobby and power-oriented In British Columbia, where I reside, the top malpractice politicians had deceived the American public grievously. Your premium (applied to neurosurgeons and obstetricians, for instance) courage in presenting the research so completely and clearly is is $17,000 annually, and the health care system pays $14,000 of admirable. this, to the Canadian Medical Protective Association which the I took the issue to a career musician because of the concems profession set up fifty years ago. General practitioners pay $3,000 musicians have in regard to health insurance, but also because you a year. mentioned the Toronto physician who had used electrodes (oi>>~ If I might make one further suggestion, it would be that my child with spina bifida. Her two-and-a-half-year-old grand-dang“ American colleagues should insist that, as in Canada, health care was born with cerebral palsy, which has a similar immature delivery be managed by individual states. Our national government nervous system problem. The child’s father phoned the Toronto is prohibited by our constitution from interfering with health care doctor, they sent him copies of the research involved, and Paola is when a Provincial plan encompasses such basic tenets as universali- now sleeping with electrodes in place each night and already ty and portability. showing improvement. The family sends you their thanks. (Let) me say, as one who has taught at the University of Janet Kelsey, Kailua, Hawaii Califomia in San Francisco, and at Yale, as a visiting professor, as a great admirer of American medicine, that I hope you eliminate It didnl take courage.