Published: June 27, 2009 11:11 pm      

Our Readers Speak — June 28, 2009

Proposed license laws not good for DOs



West Virginia needs more doctors. The board that licenses osteopaths (DOs) is proposing a number of rule changes in how doctors can be allowed to practice in the state. I don’t think any of these changes are good for the people of West Virginia.

If these changes pass:

1. It will allow an osteopathic medical school graduate (a DO) a temporary permit to practice after they finish their first year of internship, but without passing the third part of the national osteopathic licensing exam.

Part 3 is where osteopaths “demonstrate knowledge of clinical concepts and principles from a problem and symptom based foundation” — what patients tell a doctor when they come in to see him or her.

2. DOs will eventually need to pass Part 3 but it doesn’t say by when or with how many tries.

3. Graduates of an osteopathic medical school can have their one-year of training in a program that’s not been approved, and may not be

4. It looks like they can get their temporary permit having finished a year of a specialty training program; the clinical content of that year doesn’t have much in common with an internship (general practice) year.

5. It doesn’t say for how long the permit is good.

6. Permit holders can only practice in an area of need — where many people have complicated and multiple medical problems.

7. A graduate of an osteopathic medical school, who has gone through an MD training program and is licensed in another state only needs to have 40 hours of DO continuing medical education (CME) credits to be licensed as a DO in West Virginia. It took a lot more than that for me when I came back to practice in West Virginia.

8. A temporary permit can be renewed (when?) if the permit holder wants to change the conditions of their practice with the reasons for those changes. It doesn’t say what the “conditions” are. That sounds pretty vague, pretty broad.

9. The rule will say that a medical school graduate can be seeking to participate in an osteopathic training program, but it will also say they have to be participating in a training program. It can’t be both.

Bottom line. Write the Board of Osteopathy at 334 Penco Road, Weirton, WV 26062.

Tell them you don’t like this. Tell them you want your DO to have a license.



Suzanne Williams, D.O.

Clintonville



Fight for medical care for all people



I watched the Bill Moyer show on PBS and it was clear to me that we will have to fight the paid lobbyists and our elected officials to get medical care for the people. It is a fact that our elected officials do not run our state or nation because it is run by paid lobbyists. In Washington and Charleston paid lobbyists spend millions of dollars defeating any legislation which goes against their employer’s profit margins. There is no end to corporate greed. They only care about profits and not you’re health care.

I will give you and example of what has happened to another medical system which is run by administrators and that is the Veterans Administration. The veterans were presented a plan to reduce the number of administrative positions in 1995 and we agreed. The system was called the Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) which was to consist of seven to 10 positions to coordinate Veterans health care in 22 networks. This was a good plan but over the past eight years the VISNs have grown from 250 administrative positions to thousands at an estimated cost of $500 million a year. The VA is just another example of health care systems which are broke and out of control.

The business of medicine has been allowed to charge any price they want to insure their profits. The health insurance companies have been allowed to increase their premiums and co-pays to insure their profits. The result of minimum care for maximum profit is the ever increasing cost of medical care because medicine for excessive profit is paid for by us all.

It is time we stand up against corporate greed, paid lobbyists, and our elected officials and let them know we all want medical insurance we can afford. I ask you to contact your elected officials and let them know we have had enough and want them to support a national medical plan for the people not their corporate sponsors.



Jack Tincher

Crab Orchard



Why not look back at the past?



Back about 61 years ago when I was in the first grade at Pettus Grade School I recall that day clearly. They got everyone out of the school. It had caught on fire and all the kids stood outside and watched the school burn down. They gave us ice cream to eat that day. But the part I remember is when the fire was on. They had us to go to school in the church up in Packsville in the basement. Those days we had no spring breaks or snow days or other days off except, as I remember, only Christmas and New Year’s. We didn’t get off for hunting season. We were young. We weren’t allowed to hunt with a gun. How time changes. Everything except man’s hearts seems to change.

They right about snow days in the paper and on TV. But there is one solution to the problem. That is to look back to where things was. The bus driver put chains on the bus and we still had school all the school seasons. We still had our summer to play. If I’m not wrong we got out of school around the end of May. Why not look back? Or is it too easy to look?



JR. Hundley

Danese



Travel tax is unfair for some residents



It seems inevitable that we will soon have a 60 percent increase in the unfair “travel to your state capital tax.” Unfair because it is only levied on the citizens of eight southern West Virginia counties. But it is also unfair to blame the Parkways Authority for increasing this tax. The Authority is only taking the action necessary to make bond payments and to maintain the highway in a somewhat usable manner. This they are required to do by a law enacted about 1989 and amended from time to time since then.

Who is really responsible for this 60 percent increase in the unfair “travel to your state capital tax?” It is the Manchin Administration and the West Virginia Legislature. Action could have been taken by either the Administration or by the Legislature, with the cooperation of the Administration, to direct maintenance money to the turnpike and avoid the increase. However, neither of these branches of government chose to act.

Several of our local Legislators have proposed ways to eliminate or at least prevent an increase in this unfair tax but Legislators from the other 47 counties will not cooperate to bring about fairness for those of us in the eight southern counties.

The recent sessions of the Legislature were disappointments for those of us who believed that the Governor and the Legislature were finally ready to equalize the tax burden in the state but nothing happened.

Must we endure another 55 years of the “travel to your state capital tax?”



Gene Bailey

Camp Creek