Apparently, the governor and Democratic Party of our state feel the way to control rising health care costs is to craft legislation that does not address the actual factors influencing hospital costs, to ignore people knowledgeable in the health care industry and to rush passage of legislation so nobody notices how utterly ridiculous it is.

I must assume the governor and his advisors know nothing about our health care industry since the proposed reform misses the mark.

Nowhere in this excuse for reform does anyone read about the increased utilization of services by our people that accounts for 55 percent of total hospital spending, labor costs to keep enough nurses, physicians and ancillary staff to care for patients, liability costs, supply costs or pharmaceutical costs. These costs are rising at far greater rates than our naive governor and advisors care to acknowledge.

This so-called reform will result in reduction of services, lost health care jobs, hospital closures and impede access to health care.

I ask that Gov. Baldacci table this legislation and seek the advice of the health care industry in creating new, meaningful reform.

We agree reform is needed. We agree everyone should be insured. We have a sincere interest in making sure that the highest quality health care is available for all people. After all, Maine hospitals rank third in the nation in quality care provided to Medicare beneficiaries in a recent study by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Dr. Carlo J. Gammaitoni, Lewiston