Re: Fw: letter to editor

[Dan Schmidt <schmidt6@Turbonet.com>]

Dear WMSteed, I am not Mrs. Melina, nor Mrs Molina, but I am a Gritman
Board member, a local Family Physician and a long time(15-20 yr.) community
member. That brings me to ask you some questions about your post.
	It seems you feel strongly about duplication of services. Do you feel that
should be the guiding criteria for health care decisions for the community?
Behind lack of duplication of services I assume you mean efficiency, i.e.
lowest cost. This may be an incorrect assumption on my part, but please
straighten me out if that is so. I'd love to know what this community sees
as a primary concern with health care.
	Let me remind you of Dr. Koop's axiom. In any Health Care System there are
three major variables; cost, quality, and accessability. Realistically, you
can have two, but not three. Or a fraction of all three, but pushing any
one to a maximum drives down the other two.
	It sounds like the concerns you have are regarding cost. By optimizing
cost I expect we will affect the other two, access and quality. Now, any
system has trade offs, but I think we need to be aware of the give and take. 
	Dan J Schmidt

 03:49 PM 12/23/99 EST, you wrote:
>Mrs. Melina,
>
>I find it interesting that the Chair of the Gritman Hospital Board is
married 
>to an employee of the hospital who has a vested interest in not seeing two 
>emergency rooms combined into one which would allow the reduction of several 
>emergency room physician jobs which would no longer be needed to provide 
>staffing at a single facility.
>
>This is precisely why a combined facility is needed.  The duplication of 
>physical plant, equipment and staffs at two hospitals, eight miles apart is 
>costing the citizens of the Palouse more than is necessary; whether it is in 
>medical insurance premiums or in co-pays or direct payments.
>
>Listen to what your consultant and the insurance companies are saying.  A 
>combined hospital is the most efficient and economically practical solution 
>to this long standing duplication of costs and efforts.
>
>Walter Steed
>
>