I write letters, health care style

I decided to contact the White House today. Here is my letter:

I am a mother whose pregnancy was turned down by Blue Cross Blue Shield as a preexisting condition. I am a medical student who doesn’t want to turn away any mothers when I am an ob/gyn because they don’t have insurance coverage.

Please, please do not abandon the public option. The Republican party has not responded to any attempts at bipartisanship yet this term. Compromise doesn’t work if the other side only says “no”.

One of the most effective ways of reducing health care costs is to increase quality of care by reducing unnecessary interventions. Childbirth is the most common reason for admission into the hospital, and cesarean section is the most common hospital surgical procedure. Please support patient centered quality of care panels, evidence based medicine incentives and a departure from procedure based reimbursement.

Looking into the midwifery based model of care practiced in most countries with better maternal and neonatal outcomes wouldn’t hurt, either. Midlevel practitioners are less expensive, can spend more time with patients, and are less likely to use expensive interventions. Many physicians would be happy to work with midwives, and practices and hospitals in the United States already successfully incorporate midwifery into their obstetric and gynecologic health care delivery.

Anyway, good luck, and don’t sell out your base. Medicare faced a similar fight, and the Democrats feasted on that well fought success for a long time. Let’s do it again.

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