Coming soon to a legislature near you: the OSBA campaign

Coming soon to a legislature near you: the OSBA campaign
EDITOR:
The Ohio State Medical Association concluded its 2006 annual convention last Sunday at the posh Intercontinental Suites on the campus of the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic. Tim Maglione, OSMA's senior director of government relations, will have already translated the resolutions passed by the House of Delegates into rudimentary political arguments for draft legislation OSMA will want considered. Soon Tim and his associates will be working on friendly lawmakers and deferential journalists on the Columbus Merlot-and-tenderloin circuit. Early autumn the first editorial letters will appear urging Ohio's General Assembly to deal with the latest health care crises. Only insiders will observe how closely they parrot OSMA's policy preferences and rankings. No one challenges OSMA.
That's why neither the energetic Republican gubernatorial contender Ken Blackwell nor his sincere Democratic opponent, Ted Strickland, have yet offered much more than rhetorical pap on our increasingly distressed health care system.
A handful of mathematicians, economists, physicians, and activists know just how bad our health care system really is.
What's needed are selfless medical doctors with a sense of public mission who are willing to tell Ken Blackwell and Ted Strickland the truth about health care before the airplane hits the skyscraper.
What should the Mahoning Valley's public spirited physicians say?
Mr. Candidate, dollar for dollar, when outcomes are measured against inputs, our health care is the least efficient and most expensive in the industrialized world.
Ted and Ken, the system never did work right. With all that money sloshing around, few people noticed. But our range of political options narrows with every passing day. Public anger against the medical establishment is rising.
I don't want to wait until the only choice we have to save health care is government seizure of medical practices and hospitals under eminent domain. The first step is to educate the public on the need for a meaningful universal health care proposal. Whether anyone wants to believe it or not, universal health is the worldwide standard of efficient health care that fulfills our common values and beliefs about what health care ought to be.
Yeah, it's going to be tough, Ken and Ted. But you have to start by calling Tim Maglione at OSMA to ask for his cooperation in making a health care system we can proud of.
JACK LABUSCH
Niles
Shame on you, driver
EDITOR:
At approximately 6:25 a.m. Friday, a hit- skip driver struck my daughter's family dog on Stuart Avenue in Boardman. She was a tiny lovable terrier-poodle not much bigger than a football. She brought love and pleasure to my daughter and her family for just 11/2 years, but it was a great time. We tried to save her but she was too broken in a lot of places to keep her and make her future quality of life unsure. She was put to sleep that afternoon and we were all heartbroken -- mom, dad and two young ones, 8 and 4, without their puppy, Oreo.
We could have forgiven the driver of the car if only he/she would have stopped to help. It happened in front of my son-in-law. He was too stunned to get the license number. The driver must have been in too much of a hurry to worry about a lovable family pet lying mortally wounded on the street.
It's a sad time for all who enjoyed this unique pet. She was taken too soon by the driver who sped away. Shame on you.
JACK WALTER
Canfield