Letter to Governor Rendell

Here is the letter I sent to Governor Rendell regarding my wife's recent experience at the Doctor's office and the Governor's plan to establish health insurance for all Pennsylvanians. I have never received a response from Governor Rendell and I don't expect a response to this letter either, however, if my some chance I do receive a response I will post it here.

Governor Rendell:

I support the attempt to fix the issue of healthcare in Pennsylvania. However, your plan of health insurance for everyone does not attack the problem. The problem is higher healthcare costs not health insurance!

My wife and I have excellent heath insurance through my employer. However, we rarely use it. Why? Because we are both healthy young adults! We exercise, eat right, and avoid those harmful activities such as drinking excessive alcohol and smoking.

Last week, my wife went to the Doctor and wanted complete blood work done to check for various health problems (cholesterol, thyroid, diabetes, etc). The Doctor would not order the complete blood work and would only write a prescription for the cholesterol portion of the test. The Doctor was not sure if our insurance would cover the test and a complete blood test is apparently expensive.

The Doctor gave her an advertisement for a multiphasic blood test sponsored by a local hospital. The test only costs $25 and covers everything my wife wanted tested for in the first place! How is it possible that this complete test only costs $25 when not going through insurance, but costs several hundred dollars when using insurance!

Therefore, my point of this letter is to tell you we don’t need health insurance for everyone as much as we need lower healthcare costs!
We used to receive great, affordable healthcare at a local clinic. However, a few years ago that placed closed because the doctor’s claimed that their patients were going to the clinic rather than the doctor. We need more of these low cost, high quality clinics that can take care of simple ailments for healthy people.