Good work, Tribune, in exposing how a health maintenance organization told a woman they would not pay to save her leg because cutting it off would be cheaper (“Medicine aches with HMO fever,” Page 1, April 14). This is more than an extreme case. It is a sign of a health-care system with incentives to save money at the expense of our health.
Instead of such a system, let’s preserve, improve and expand Medicare to cover all ages (as in the system so popular and effective in Canada). According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, “If the United States were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer as in Canada, the savings in administration costs would be more than enough to offset the expense of universal coverage.”
If Canada can provide quality health care to its people, our country, being wealthier, can do even better.
