Don’t stop at pooling health insurance purchases | READER COMMENTARY

Don't stop at pooling health insurance purchases

Dr. Dan Morhaim’s opinion piece about pooling health insurance across the state is an excellent idea (“Pooling health insurance could save Maryland millions,” March 15). It has impeccable logic, and I would encourage Gov. Wes Moore and the Maryland General Assembly to appoint a task force to move this forward.

However, why stop there? They should also streamline, or eliminate, insurance companies’ practice of requiring doctors to get prior authorization for even the most common and basic treatments.

Doctors often must spend considerable wasted time on this practice. Who should make what are often life and death decisions about a patient’s treatment: a medical doctor who has sworn n Hippocratic Oath or an insurance office worker whose job it is to lower costs? Should your insurance company be allowed to stop you from getting a treatment — even if your doctor says it’s necessary?

The prior authorization process is used by insurance companies to create intentional barriers between patients and the health care they need in order to bloat their already astronomical profits at our expense. Only the state can protect us from this practice which, as an aside, also would lower insurance costs and save us even more money.

— K. Gary Ambridge, Bel Air