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Maryann "Miki" Gudermuth of Cape Girardeau is director of the SEMO Alliance for Disability and Dependence. She is also the state representative for the National Organization on Disability.

I have read with deep interest the Perspectives on health care in the United States by all specialists in the medical industry, an insurance company, as well as administrators of the local hospitals. I have heard everything from the high cost of malpractice insurance down to the issue of people taking responsibility for themselves in health care management. I have yet to read anything by private individuals who have been devastated by the high cost of health care who can tell it like it really is.

Where are all these people who complain about the high cost of health care and when they have a chance to respond in an open forum such as Perspective, they sit back and do nothing? We only hear from the professionals who have the most to gain by not advocating for government regulated insurance or cost containment measures like a cap on fees they charge. Who bears the real responsibility for the health care crisis?

My experience with emergency rooms tell of going in for relief of headaches which occur sometimes on weekends when the family doctor is not available for prescription remedy. I suffer from allergic rhinitis and Southeast Missouri is rampant for sinus conditions. Because of malpractice suits, the emergency room of the hospital x-rays my head, gives me blood tests from A to Z, which includes testing for pregnancy, of which, had they asked me, I could have spared them the trouble since it would have taken divine intervention to cause this to happen. I was put on glucose for dehydration, and was in the emergency room four hours before they would even give me a shot for the headache and vomiting. The insurance company paid out almost $1,000 to pay for their malpractice insurance not my shot. Thus, my insurance as a spouse on my husband's plan went up so high as to be ridiculous.

I am on Medicare now, but with no supplemental because nobody will insure a disabled person without restrictions to pre-existing conditions, and then the premiums are cost-prohibitive. AARP would insure pre-existing, but you have to be over 50, so I have a little ways to go for that.

If I have a serious condition in the future, and Medicare doesn't cover it, does my church or friends have a fundraiser to meet the expenses? Because if you don't meet the expenses and my Medicare runs out the hospital suddenly finds they can no longer do anything to keep you alive because you're terminal, or you have recovered and they send you home. They don't say "Please stay and let us make you well at our expense." If you have a home, they let you sell it..if you have retirement savings, they let you withdraw it all. The bottom line is illness with no insurance is terminal. I read at least one fundraiser a week in the newspaper to secure an operation for someone who will die without surgery. Who made that decision to terminate the life of that person before the fundraiser saved the day? The insurance company when the insurance ran out...the doctor...the hospital...the patient? Without the fundraiser, who pulled the plug?

My husband's mother, who was 81 with colon cancer, was kept alive (in pain) on life supports until Medicare had run out, and then she was sent to a nursing home to die four days later. The hospital bill was $250,000; the doctor's bill for seeing her five minutes each day was about $50,000 for a period of three months. She was three doctors, multiplied by $50,000 each. She was terminal in pain and they waited until Medicare run out before they gave up on her.

The last physician to respond to Perspective on Health stated people should live a healthier lifestyle. Not that hospitals and doctors overcharge but people shouldn't get sick. Well, my solution would be to cut all the trees down, get rid of every weed on the earth, get rid of all the flowers, animals, try to manipulate the weather better, get rid of factories that produce air pollutants, man-made fibers, and then maybe people would not be hayfever, allergies and upper respiratory problems. Advocate no more sex so there are no more communicable diseases. Take competitive sports away and there would be no more sports related injuries. Take away airports, checkout lines, factory deadlines, transportation deadlines, business-related competition and deadlines, take away the need to make money to live, and that will take care of stress related illnesses. Take away automobiles and trucks so there are no highway fatalities. Now, this takes us back to the good old days, except you still had most of what I stated above just not as many people needing the services.

When science discovered the way to increase man's lifespan, beyond that which God set forth in the bible, science also opened Pandora's box on how to keep those lives healthy enough to survive that long. Without birth control, the birthrate gets out of hand. Too many people in the world with fewer jobs and no income increases the threat of famine, criminal behavior, disease out of control and increases stress.

People are no longer happy to adopt when they are childless they instead bear more children in whatever way they can scientifically. The motherless child remains motherless and in an institution paid for by taxpayers money.

So let us look at solutions to the problem: Limit the number of births per year, per family through voluntary or mandatory birth control. More people signing right to die petitions. People signing medical waivers which state they can not be treated unless their sign away their right to come back and sue for medical damages. Or courts need to put a cap on damage suit amounts. Even attorneys get way more than the law should allow in fees. They get one-third of all damage suit awards even if they don't go to court. People with transmittable health risks should not have children. These are some answers, but nobody wants to hear them because it takes sacrifice.

We cannot eliminate all the problems that cause illness and death. Answers do not lie in socialized medicine alone; government subsidies of health care will not answer all the needs. Medical industries will need to sacrifice some profits, the legal industry should not make it so easy to sue for malpractice and put caps on it, and people should start trusting their health care providers better and not be so ready to sue. Life is a gamble. The physician informs patients of the risk of any medical procedure, they cannot predict the outcome, only God can do that. God gave man the power to heal but not work miracles only he can do that.

The answers are not easy, everyone must make sacrifices. We don't need more fingers poking at who the problem is for the health care crisis. We are all the problem and we are all the solution.