Local moves all cost the patient

The optimism of Thursday’s editorial on the future of medical care in Snohomish County is difficult to share, especially since it began with the observation that “the trajectory of health costs continues skyward.” (“Some positive local moves.”) The jury is still out on the Providence/Swedish partnership, but I didn’t miss the comment that both need to improve their balance sheets for the long term. Since legislative gridlock gives them no prospects from better Medicare reimbursement, I looked at their other alternatives for income and all I saw was us.

As for The Everett Clinic, the resolution has been dictated as requiring all Medicare patients to buy insurance policies from a short list of Medicare Advantage plans selected by them to be eligible for care by their business. Since this will represent a net increase in the cost of care for this group, once again, the solution is us.

I asked Gov. Gregoire to investigate this as a violation of monopoly law since, in Snohomish County, the option of taking our business elsewhere is precluded by the sheer number of alternatives. She said it was a business decision. No kidding. And here I thought it was a peanut butter sandwich.

This national solution to the recession of sucking money out of empty wallets is bad enough in the general financial picture, but applying it to the medical world where lives are so very literally at stake is unconscionable.

Harold R. Pettus
Everett