Insurers share blame for hepatitis crisis

Ginny Nagy, Las Vegas

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.

Daniel J. Bell, in his letter to the editor Saturday, has it wrong when he says that “the insurers have acted responsibly” by suspending their contracts with the Gastroenterology Center of Nevada and physicians and surgery centers. The insurers are at the root of the problem!

Were it not for the insurers’ relentless cost-cutting tactics, doctors, hospitals and other medical providers would not be constantly prodded to reduce fees. (I had 25 years in the insurance industry.) Granted, most medical professionals do not resort to the tactics used by Dr. Dipak Desai and his associates, but this is where it can — and did — lead.

Additionally, it is the insurers who keep raising premium costs, leaving many more employers to offer the least expensive plans for their employees and their families. We enroll in those lower-cost plans because it may be all we are offered or can afford. The recent debacle at the endoscopy centers is the result.

Ironically, it is we, the unsuspecting public, who have been victimized. If this isn’t an argument for universal health care, I don’t know what is. As long as medicine (and insurance) continues to operate with profits in mind, this current mess and others like it will prevail. (P.S., My husband and I are still awaiting our test results.)