Healthcare Costs Hit Both Physicians and Patients

I am an internist and a cardiologist who has practiced in Long Beach for 32 years. In the last 12 years, my fee schedule has not changed. For instance, I charge $275 for a treadmill stress test. The treadmill stress test requires me and my nurse to attend the patient for 45 minutes to one hour. Medicare pays me a total of $94.73 for the treadmill stress test, and I am required to waive the balance of the $275 fee. Similarly, my fee for an electrocardiogram is $75. Medicare pays me $24.73.

What I take issue with, however, is that the drug companies have no similar constraints.

Many of my patients cannot afford their medicine and go without it, to the detriment of their health. I don’t understand why our governmental agencies don’t control the cost of drugs in the same way they do physicians’ practices.

Today we see patients who need to spend $600 or even more a month on medications. Most of them don’t have the money.

The government needs to protect the health and welfare of these patients by enacting legislation to control the costs of drugs.

Donald K. Chung

Long Beach

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The high deductibles that most health insurance companies are now offering are like having no insurance at all. You must reach $1,000 in deductibles before your insurance kicks in, and in some cases it is $2,000.

The health insurance companies should change the name of this insurance and call it hospital insurance, as it takes many months of going to see doctors and prescriptions to reach your deductible, but a stay in the hospital will easily get there.

At the present time, 43 million Americans have no health coverage, yet we have billions to spend on defense and security. Let’s protect the American public first with a universal health plan.

Lee Jay Meyers

Anaheim