Ensuring coverage for healthcare

Re “Examining rescission,” editorial, March 1

You ask how we might regulate insurers of healthcare “to assure that risk management doesn’t price vast numbers of people out of coverage.” If we removed the insurance companies from the equation, the dollars siphoned off between patient and provider would not be needed to cover expenses and profits -- plus hefty bonuses -- for insurance companies and their leaders. Healthcare costs would be lower.

I consider healthcare no different from police and fire protection, which everyone receives regardless of financial status. Likewise, health protection should be available to everyone.

George Epstein

Los Angeles

Your editorial noted the efforts of the insurance commissioner, the L.A. city attorney and Sacramento legislators. But where is the state Department of Managed Health Care in this fight? The department held hearings on possible regulation more than a year ago and is still dithering. Why, given that the law’s ban on such rescissions is completely unambiguous?

The department seems unwilling to offend its stakeholders -- the HMOs -- by doing what the law requires: banning all such rescissions unless they have been pre-approved by the department. It must finally come up with the regulations needed to prevent HMOs from pulling the carpet out from under patients when they are most vulnerable.

Harvey S. Frey MD

Santa Monica

The writer is director of the Health Administration Responsibility Project Inc., a resource for those considering legal action against managed-care organizations.

In answer to your question “what is a reasonable profit for an [healthcare] insurance company,” it’s not reasonable for any company to ever profit from people’s health. Cutting the best deal doesn’t seem to sit right with doctors and hospitals. I wonder how many uninsured people in this country could actually afford insurance if these companies were run as nonprofit organizations?

Miv Evans

West Hollywood