LETTERS

Re: David Lazarus’ consumer column, “Health insurers pull a fast one,” March 29:

What a novel concept, charging different prices for different levels of service.

If you live in a state that mandates coverage of ob/gyn, mental health, mammograms and wigs for chemotherapy patients in order to sell insurance, you are paying for them regardless of whether you use any of them.

Most other types of insurance are structured to protect against catastrophic problems. If you could get an oil change and new spark plugs simply by making a $10 co-payment, auto insurance would be unaffordable for many of us too. Let’s have a cafeteria of health insurance coverage with deductibles that encourage us to take better care of ourselves.

Jim Halloran

Redondo Beach

::

The biggest problem with our current health insurers is that they offer almost no incentives for individuals to maximize their own health through lifestyle choices.

You don’t see discounts for vegans or the non-obese. Insurers seem to be most interested in maximizing their cash flow, not in minimizing their costs.

Bruce Hamilton

Redondo Beach

::

Thank you, David Lazarus, for a huge service by discussing and revealing the hidden message in this latest desperate effort by the insurance industry to hang on to the “good thing” they’ve had going for so long.

As more of their techniques for denying coverage are revealed, it’s going to be harder for them to appear to be anything but a profit-generating business.

He’s absolutely correct that no real reform will happen until the amoral profit is taken out of this public issue. Maybe he should challenge his readers to imagine fire and police protection being in the hands of a for-profit industry.

Gail Olson

Watsonville