Metrodopulos

An open letter.

Dear Des Cummings of Florida Hospital and the executives of United Healthcare:

Last week I received a letter signed by you about the impending contract between your hospital group and my medical insurance, United Healthcare.

Thank you for the information regarding your contract negotiations, but please allow me to give you my opinion. I will keep this as short as possible as I would prefer you keep to the job of sorting out this contract and not reading my letter.

Both parties use of the members in this contract negotiation is despicable. Please do not play us for fools. Your goal is clearly to bring this issue to the public instead of completing contract negotiations behind closed doors where it should be.

I am a hard worker. I pay my taxes, my bills and provide food for my family every month. I also pay for my own health insurance out of my own pocket. I follow those rules and never miss payments, short change payments or argue about them.

When I was admitted to the emergency room a few years back and was charged $1800 to see one doctor and have one xray taken I didn’t complain, I just went through the steps to have a file claimed and made sure my insurance at the time paid me back my share.

Did I receive $1800 worth of services? No, not by a longshot but I know the way the system works. Health care is elective, and I have to make a choice every time I have a cough, a bump or a debilitating headache. I have the choice of paying or the choice of dealing with it on my own.

When my insurance premiums increase by over 50% in 2 short years I don’t complain, I just request that my deductible be increased so that I can still afford the monthly payments. I know that’s the way the system works so I play by the rules and hope that everything works out in the end.

I know you’re both in the money making business, I get it, and I accept it. I don’t expect from you the same integrity and moral values that I surely expect from my Doctor.

But, when you are stopping my Doctor from doing his job effectively or limiting me to seeing certain doctors in the fashion of “take with one hand and give with another” then you are taking your greed too far.

At the end of this contract negotiation, the only loser will be your customers, the patients. We will either lose the ability to visit a local hospital, doctor or care provider or we will be paying even higher premiums. That is inevitable and “just the way it works”.

I don’t want your letters or your propaganda on what you are trying to provide us and why the other party is wrong, save that for your investors and shareholders. All I ask is that you treat me fairly, give me the services I pay for and charge me a fair amount, not the highest you can possibly get away with.

We are your profits. We put the leather seats in your luxury cars. Treat us with a little bit more respect, after all, you need us.