Relay donations should go to Relay teams, participants
Dear Editor:
I am an advocate, a volunteer and a supporter of the American Cancer Society.
Specific areas in which I strongly support ACS donations are Relay For Life and Cancer Action Network.
Your contributions to any ACS segment is laudable and worthy of your support.
General donations to American Cancer Society sustain areas such as administration, Reach to Recovery, Road to Recovery and others, and if you choose, ACS welcomes specified grants.
I would like to clarify that money donated to ACS can be used in diverse ways, and it has come to my attention that there is oftentimes confusion regarding how to designate your gifts to individual preferences.
As charities are wont to do, regularly letters are sent from ACS asking for your support with an envelope supplied to return your contribution.
When you give money in this way, your donation will support administrative costs in addition to any of the charitable ways ACS supports the public and will work to treat or prevent cancer.
It is essential that any charity receive endowments for these purposes.
If, however, you want your donation to support Relay For Life, which is the signature fundraising event for the American Cancer Society, then your gift should be directed to the local RFL event through a team or an individual involved in Relay For Life of Johnson County.
The eighth annual Relay For Life of Johnson County will be held from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. June 4-5 at the Cleburne High School track.
All the money raised through Relay For Life is contributed toward cancer research, education, advocacy and patient services.
By joining ACS Cancer Action Network your membership fee assists in the fight on all levels of government for legislation concerning prevention and treatment of cancer.
This organization is active particularly on the state and national levels in the immediate health care legislation debates.
I am personally involved in all of these areas of the American Cancer Society and appreciate your support for this charity.
I have been a part of Road to Recovery, Reach to Recovery, Relay For Life, ACS CAN and indirectly with some specific grants that are only some of the designations of ACS support.
By no means do I minimize a contribution to any portion of ACS, but I do hope to impress that if you want your money to support the local Relay For Life event, please be sure your donation is made through a local participant or team or as sponsor, not through an envelope you received in the mail bearing only the ACS name.
Mary Ann Wheatley
Cleburne
Medicare needs rational physician payment system
Dear Editor:
Texas physicians are deeply concerned about our broken Medicare system and the patients it is supposed to serve.
I have practiced otolaryngology and head and neck surgery — ear, nose and throat — in Cleburne for nearly 10 years, and many of my patients are Medicare patients.
The last thing I want to do is not take care of them because the government can’t solve one problem with Medicare.
For the past decade, Congress has failed to fix the flawed payment formula used to calculate what it pays physicians.
And each year, the payment cut grows deeper.
In fact, Medicare just cut physicians’ payment by more than 20 percent.
A cut of this magnitude is devastating for Medicare patients and the physicians who treat them.
Right now in Texas, more than 2.5 million senior citizens and people with disabilities, and 850,000 military family members depend on Medicare for health care. This is overwhelming.
It’s ironic that in the midst of all the debate on health system reform, Medicare — the largest health program run by the government — is imploding.
The government simply cannot run a health care program without physicians.
The current debacle over cuts to physician payments is the latest in a series of events where Congress has created a problem but continually failed to address it.
How can any of us trust Congress truly to address health care reform if Congress cannot and will not fix Medicare?
Physicians have been operating under government price controls since 1987.
Believe it or not, we have not had a payment increase from Medicare that kept up with cost of running a practice since 2001.
If Congress does not fix Medicare, almost half of Texas physicians may have to opt out of Medicare.
This is horrible for senior citizens, for Texans with disabilities, and for families in the military who depend on Medicare for health care.
This is horrible for the doctors who take of them.
We need a rational Medicare physician payment system that automatically keeps up with the cost of running a practice and is backed by a fair, stable funding formula.
Dr. Theodore T. Benke, M.D., F.A.C.S.
Cleburne
