A Letter from Rev. Wayne Perryman

Dear Friends

Given the fact that 97% of all poor people whether citizens or illegal aliens, receive health care services through Public Hospitals during the past 70 years andthrough Medicare and Public Hospitals in recent years, what is the urgent rush on Health Care?

We have all been deceived into thinking that citizens in America are not getting health care because they have no health insurance, but that is not true. Visit the county and public health hospitals throughout the America, many of which are being run by medical schools of universities and you will see that the poor and the un-insured are receiving health care services from these government sponsored hospitals - and have been for years. Ask yourself this question: What did Americans do before there was a Blue Cross and and Blue Shield? Most of the poor people and the un-insured do not even know what Blue Cross and Blue Shield is, but they do know about what they call welfare hospitals which exist in every urban center in America. Public hospitals have been meeting the needs of the poor and the un-insured for decades. Ask yourself this: How many people had health insurance from 1890 to 1960? If they did not health care insurance, who provided their health care? Public hospitals and country doctors.

If we made insurance available for those persons who are accustomed to going to Public Hospitals, would this mean that they will start going to private hospitals to get the care that they had been receiving from Public Hospitals near their communities? No, not necessarily. Most will continue to go to the Public Hospitals and most would not want to deal with the paperwork associated with filing insurance claims including the paperwork necessary for a government sponsored insurance program. The other question would be: could the current private hospitals and doctors accomodate this new (50 million) patient population and what would happen to the Public Hospitals?

This is not to say that we do not need health care reform, it is only to say that the population that Congress is focusing on, are individuals who are already receiving medical care without health insurance. The same government that will make insurance available to this population for a fee and a co-pay, is the same government that is currently financing Public Hospitals that provide those same services without the cost of purchasing affordable insurance and the up front co-pay that is often required with insurance programs.

Let's have health care reform, but let the focus first on allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines to lower rates; covering person with pre-existing conditions who cannot obtain insurance and individuals who are dropped by their insurance companies because of their health, Then let's find a way to provide health insurance for the poor/un-insured and more importantly, the means for them to pay for it.

What do you think?


Rev. Wayne Perryman