Letters To The Editor

Mon., May 5, 1997

MEDICAL CARE

Shipping out patients bad policy

Bargain basement bypass heart surgery is here, but the basement where the surgery may be done might be in Seattle, Portland or Salt Lake City - wherever the health care industry can find the best price.

In the April 20 article, “Hospitals join forces for survival,” it was reported that Edward Lehrman of Omak was sent by his insurance company to Portland, Ore., for a non-emergency heart bypass operation because it could be done cheaper there. Managed health care is pointed to as the driver in this move toward the use of a national instead of local health care market. Also, cheap air fares are cited as an incentive. (I wonder if one can use frequent-flyer miles to return for checkups?)

I believe in our private enterprise system vs. socialized medicine, but this is going a little too far. Sick people need to be close to home and attended by the physician of their choice.

When I had major surgery in Spokane two years ago, the physician who managed my case also did the surgery and is still attending me. My recovery was enhanced by regular visits from my family, my pastor and many supportive friends. Today, through God’s healing and good health care, I have been restored. The only reason I would want to go to Portland would be to see the Rose Parade, not to have surgery.

I know health care has to be paid for, but let’s cut corners on the salaries of the insurance companies executives, not on the emotional and physical well-being of the insured. Merle R. Craner Cheney

Medicare should fund chiropractic care

My husband went to a chiropractor in Coeur d’Alene and was surprised to find out neither Medicare nor Medicaid would cover the whole bill.

The doctor explained that Medicare will pay only for services determined to be “reasonable and necessary” under program standards. If Medicare determines a particular service, although it would otherwise be covered, is not reasonable and necessary under its standards, it will deny payment for the service.

Initial examinations, supports, supplements, etc., and physical therapy are not covered and no reimbursement is given for them. Medicare requires that X-rays be taken within 12 months prior to initiation of treatment or the treatment will not be covered.

If you are among the millions caught up in this predicament of needing chiropractic care and are unable to geet it to due to this Medicare Act, you need to contact your legislators and demand that they change their way of thinking toward chiropractic care.

They will have to understand that these doctors give millions of people relief from extreme back pain and deserve the same kind of respect as other doctors.

Medicaid will not pay for these services 100 percent, either. Don’t just sit around and wait for others to write these letters, get your pen and paper out and let your lawmakers know how you feel. There is power in numbers! Amie L. Moore Coeur d’Alene

THE MEDIA

Solo conference worth a story

Recently, for the 12th consecutive year, Solo Strategies, a conference for recently widowed women and men, was held at Spokane Community College.

This has been an extremely helpful program for people who are struggling with grief and the loss of a spouse or other loved one.

In previous years, The Spokesman-Review has deemed this conference important enough to write a front page article in the IN Life section about the program and some of the speakers.

Apparently this year, the editors thought that even providing a paragraph about coping with death and how people newly widowed could benefit from the various workshops, was not as important as, for instance, the front page feature article describing the current swimwear fashion (April 18, IN Life).

It’s a shame that your newspaper, being such a farreaching vehicle, couldn’t help provide information even to one lonely individual who was perhaps thinking there is nothing left in life but to be alone. Such a person might instead have learned through this program that there are others like themselves who could share what they have learned.

I was one of those people. If I hadn’t read about this conference five years ago, I might never have dared leave the confines of my house after my wife’s death the previous summer.

The newspaper has no hesitation printing stories daily about the deaths of people. It would benefit readers if, once in a while, something about the people affected by those deaths, and programs that could help them, would be reported. Steven L. Belzman Spokane

Editor’s note: The April 13 IN Life item, “Conference will focus on grief,” did provide readers with information about the then-upcoming conference.

Young writers’ efforts good

It’s great to see smart kids like Kelly Guilfoil and Darcy Camden express their understanding so well (Opinion and Roundtable, April 25). These kids see Nike and communist China much clearer than most people. Kudos to these young people for doing something about it.

Fifty million dollars for Tiger Woods, $50 million for Phil Knight and $2.70 a day for Indonesian and Vietnamese girls - not quite enough for three meals. Isn’t that slavery? Boycott Nike!

The People’s Republic of China sells us everything while oppressing Christians and democratic thinkers, all the while building up its military and economic powers to threaten their neighbors and our allies.

Kelly and Darcy, it will be your generation that has to fight this evil, tough government. Remember the Chosin Reservoir and the Korean War. Remember some of President Clinton’s apparent campaign contributors. Henry P. Warlow Hope, Idaho

Daughters views ‘refreshing’

Bravo to the young women who wrote Our Daughters Views. They have grasped the essence of bettering our world and our community.

How refreshing to see community values promoted instead of corporate values. I’m looking forward to hearing from them again. Judy K. Gardner Spokane

Illogical reference common, wrong

In all the recent, elaborate news coverage of the Heaven’s Gate cult, the one common error that kept reappearing was the cult’s alleged claim that a “UFO” was following the Hale-Bopp comet and was on its way to Earth to take the group to the next higher level. I have come to expect this kind of uninformed, imprecise language in the media, but it’s still disappointing when it occurs.

Let me correct it, please.

An alleged UFO in no way contributed to the group’s headlong plunge into eternity. What contributed to it was their mutual assent to Marshall Applewhite’s ridiculous insistence that a spacecraft had been sighted in the wake of the comet; a spacecraft that was positively the one that was going to take them all to their true home.

What does UFO mean? By definition, it’s “unidentified flying object.” Nothing more, nothing less.

That’s unidentified flying object, not identified flying object. An unidentified flying object can be anything: a meteor, reentering space junk, a drifting dandelion seed or a host of other things. Please, the term is not and has never been synonymous with spacecraft.

Headlines all over the world should have read, “Cult believed spacecraft would rescue them,” not, “Cult believed UFO would rescue them.”

On the face of it, shouldn’t it be obvious that no one would lay down his life for an unidentified flying object? Jack A. Jennings, state section director Mutual UFO Network, Spokane

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