A hospital arms race

With the opening of the newest Swedish campus in Issaquah, we are seeing the latest move in a hospital arms race that none of us can afford [“Newest medical centers ‘not your father’s hospital,’” page one, May 31].

Hospitals are the most expensive and least safe place to receive the outpatient care most patients require. Every dollar spent of five-story atria and wood-burning ovens is a dollar that cannot be dedicated to getting you better.

Do you know that Medicare pays hospitals at least 40 percent more for the same outpatient services delivered in a physician’s practice? Do you know that government purchases more than 50 percent of the health care in the U.S. and that increased costs generated by competing hospitals add to the tax burden that we all pay? Do you know that hospitals that control a geographic area are able to strong-arm your insurance company for increased payments and that is directly reflected in your rising insurance premiums?

Hospitals need to be focused on doing the most complex surgeries and taking care of the sickest patients and we need to support funding mechanisms to allow them to do this. Building temples to try to attract the best-paying patients is folly that we cannot afford.

— Brian P. Wicks, Silverdale

An edifice complex

Swedish Medical Center is building its upscale medical mall in Issaquah, not so much to serve people in need, as to pursue insured patients. The people most desperate for care in our communities — the poor, uninsured and chronically ill — need affordable care, not a piano, fireplace or destination restaurant.

This high-design hospital is built around the wellness of the institution’s own bottom line. The linear accelerator is beamed in on patients’ pocketbooks. The race by hospital executives to “push the edges” of opulence is a sign of a serious edifice complex.

— William R. Phillips, MD, Seattle